Ships
- USS Cushing (DD-376) Captain, 28 August 1936 – 19 August 1937
Edwin Thomas Short was born on 4 January 1891. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1914 and began his career in the submarine service, when the Navy’s undersea boats were still small and the duty was close and practical.
He commanded the submarine A-3 in 1916 and 1917. After the First World War he commanded K-8, serving in her in 1919 and 1920. On 17 August 1922 he became the first commanding officer of the new submarine S-35.
Short was promoted to commander on 1 June 1935. On 28 August 1936 he commissioned the Mahan-class destroyer Cushing (DD-376) at the Puget Sound Navy Yard. The ship, named for the Civil War naval officer William Barker Cushing and launched the previous December, reported to the Pacific Fleet.
His year in Cushing was spent working the ship up on the West Coast in gunnery, tactics, and fleet exercises. From 4 to 30 July 1937 the destroyer joined the search through the Hawaiian Islands and out toward Howland Island for the missing aviator Amelia Earhart. Short left the ship on 19 August 1937, when Jesse Rink Wallace relieved him.
Cushing remained in the Pacific under later commanding officers, including William Bennett Jackson and Christopher Noble. Short was promoted to captain on 1 April 1941 and to temporary commodore on 30 April 1945. He retired as a rear admiral.