Ships
- USS Albert W. Grant (DD-649) Captain from 1 March 1945
Grover Stanley Higginbotham was born on 11 January 1915 at Fancy Hill, in Amherst County, Virginia, the son of Grover and Christine Higginbotham. He was valedictorian of Buena Vista High School and entered the United States Naval Academy. He graduated with the class of 1935, among the youngest men in that class, and was commissioned an ensign on 6 June 1935.
His first ship was the battleship Arizona. From 1935 to 1938 he served in her gunnery and engineering departments. He was promoted to lieutenant (junior grade) on 6 June 1938, and his duty in Arizona ended that same year. He was promoted to lieutenant on 1 September 1941.
In the Second World War he served in the battleship Texas. He became a temporary lieutenant commander on 1 May 1943 and a temporary commander on 1 March 1944.
On 1 March 1945 he took command of the Fletcher-class destroyer Albert W. Grant (DD-649). Terrell Andrew Nisewaner had been her commanding officer from commissioning on 24 November 1943. Under Nisewaner, on the night of 24–25 October 1944, the destroyer fought in Surigao Strait, closed a Japanese force, and launched torpedoes before shellfire hit her repeatedly. Thirty-eight of her men were killed and 104 were wounded. She lost power and steering, settled by the bow, and her crew still brought her out of the strait. Higginbotham assumed command after the ship had been brought back to the United States and repaired.
In the last summer of the war he had Albert W. Grant in the western Pacific again. On 3 July 1945 she was underway at speed with the fleet operating against Balikpapan, on the coast of Borneo. He remained her commanding officer through the Japanese surrender and the year that followed. The destroyer was decommissioned on 16 July 1946, and his tour in her ended that day. He received the Bronze Star for his Pacific service while in command of Albert W. Grant.
After the war he attended the Army guided-missile school at Fort Bliss, Texas, and graduated from the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Later assignments included staff duty with the Chief of Naval Operations and service as chief of staff to the commander of a cruiser division in the Sixth Fleet. He commanded the oiler Ponchatoula (AO-148) at Pearl Harbor, then the largest oiler in the Navy, and Destroyer Squadron 25, the Pineapple Fleet, also at Pearl Harbor and then the largest destroyer squadron in the Navy. He also served as chief of staff to the commander of the Seventh Fleet at Yokosuka, Japan. He retired as a captain after 29 years in the Navy.
In civilian life he spent 15 years in management with Sperry Univac in Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, and St. Paul. While in Utah he earned a master's degree in engineering administration from the University of Utah and was elected to Phi Kappa Phi. He belonged to the Sons of the American Revolution, the Council on World Affairs, and the United States Naval Academy Alumni Association. He made his later home in Edina, Minnesota, and in Naples, Florida, and died on 8 July 2007 at the age of 92. He was survived by his wife, Vivian, by their children, Chris Slaven and Ken, and by grandchildren and great-grandchildren.