Ships
- USS Stockham (DD-683) Captain, 11 February 1944 – 28 December 1944
Ephraim Paul Holmes was born in Downsville, New York, on 14 May 1908, the son of Edward Holmes and Dolly Hathaway Holmes. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1930 and was commissioned an ensign on 5 June of that year. His first sea duty was in the light cruiser Milwaukee. The early years of his career were spent in cruisers and destroyers. In October 1933 he married Nancy Jane Sellers of Denver. They had two children, Diane and Ephraim Paul Jr.
He later studied communications at the Naval Postgraduate School. By the summer of 1938 he was in the battleship Maryland, serving as a turret officer and in fire control and the plotting room. In January 1941 he became aide and flag lieutenant to the Commander, Battleships, Battle Force, and he was on that staff at Pearl Harbor when Japanese aircraft attacked on 7 December 1941. He stayed with the battleship command through the fighting at Coral Sea and Midway. In September 1942 he was aide and flag secretary to the commander of Battleship Division Four. By that autumn he held the temporary rank of commander.
In 1943 the Navy assigned him to San Francisco to help fit out a new Fletcher-class destroyer at Bethlehem Steel. He took command of Stockham when she was commissioned on 11 February 1944 and remained her captain until 28 December 1944. After shakedown training off the West Coast, Stockham sailed for the Pacific in April.
On 19 June 1944, in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, Holmes had Stockham on picket station in the path of a large Japanese air attack. Dive bombers and torpedo planes struck at the destroyer again and again. Under his handling the ship shot down three aircraft, damaged two more, and turned others away, and she came through the day without damage or casualties. The Navy awarded him the Silver Star for that action. A Bronze Star with Combat V recognized his service as commanding officer during the assault and capture of Japanese-held islands in June and July 1944.
Through the autumn he kept Stockham with the fast carrier forces. From September into November the destroyer screened strikes against Palau, Mindanao, the Visayas, the Nansei Shoto, and Formosa, and she took part in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Holmes ran a heavy antiaircraft screen that helped break up several determined air attacks and accounted for at least one more Japanese plane. A second Bronze Star with Combat V marked that period. He left Stockham on 28 December 1944. The destroyer was in the midst of a wartime cruise that would bring her eight battle stars.
After the war Holmes moved into larger commands and senior staff duty. He commanded Sanborn and later Northampton. In July 1947 he was assistant chief of staff for communications to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet. He became a captain in 1948, a rear admiral in 1957, and a vice admiral in 1963. As a vice admiral he directed Navy program planning in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations and served as scientific officer to the Center for Naval Analyses, duty for which he received the Navy Distinguished Service Medal. He also commanded the Amphibious Force, Pacific, and the First Fleet. Over his later career the Navy awarded him three Distinguished Service Medals.
On 17 June 1967 he was promoted to admiral and became Commander in Chief of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, the twelfth officer to hold that post. At the same time he took the unified Atlantic Command, the Western Atlantic command, and the NATO post of Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic. The fleet under his charge numbered about 220,000 people, and his work was to keep it trained, supplied, and ready for sea. He retired in 1970 after forty years of service. He then spent four years as executive director of the Virginia Port Authority. He and Nancy lived in Williamsburg from 1980. She died in 1995. Holmes died at his home in Williamsburg on 23 February 1997, at the age of 88, and was buried with military honors in the United States Naval Academy Cemetery at Annapolis. He was survived by his daughter, Diane Holmes Fletcher, his son, Ephraim Paul Holmes Jr., and a large family of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.