Ships
- USS Dewey (DD-349) Captain from 4 October 1934
Harry Wilbur Hill was born in Oakland, California, on 7 April 1890. He finished high school there and won a place at the United States Naval Academy by competitive examination, entering in 1907. At Annapolis he played basketball and lacrosse. He graduated in June 1911. His service ran until 1952 and closed at the rank of vice admiral.
His first sea duty was in the Pacific, in the armored cruiser Maryland, in Iris, and in the destroyer Perry. He then served as engineer officer of the gunboat Albany. In January 1917 he joined the battleship Texas, which operated with the British Grand Fleet through the First World War. He later served in the battleship Wyoming and was present for the surrender of the German fleet in 1918. In 1919, as a lieutenant, he was a flag lieutenant and afterward an aide to the Chief of Naval Operations. During that tour in Washington he also attended the Army Chemical Warfare School.
In 1923, as a lieutenant commander, he assisted in fitting out the light cruiser Concord at William Cramp and Sons in Philadelphia and became her gunnery officer when she was commissioned on 23 November 1923. For three months in the summer of 1925 he was aide to the Commander in Chief, United States Fleet, and he then served as gunnery officer of the light cruiser Memphis. From June 1926 to 1928 he was executive officer of the Receiving Barracks at Hampton Roads, Virginia. He went back to sea in July 1928 as gunnery officer of the battleship Maryland and stayed until May 1931. In 1929 that battleship won the fleet gunnery trophy, and the Secretary of the Navy sent Hill a letter of commendation. He next served as a battalion officer in the executive department of the Naval Academy. From June 1933 to 1934 he was force gunnery officer on the staff of Commander, Battle Force, United States Fleet, in the Pacific.
The Navy ordered him to Bath Iron Works, in Bath, Maine, to fit out a new destroyer of the Farragut class. Dewey (DD-349) was launched on 28 July 1934 and commissioned on 4 October 1934, with Commander H. W. Hill in command. He remained her commanding officer until 17 June 1935. Under him the ship made training cruises to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and in April 1935 he took her from Norfolk to San Diego.
He returned to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations and in May 1938 finished the senior course at the Naval War College. In June 1938, in the rank of captain, he became war plans officer on the staff of the Commander in Chief, United States Fleet, and served in that post until February 1940. A third tour in the war plans division of the Chief of Naval Operations followed, lasting until January 1942. In those years he was also the American member of the Permanent Joint Board on Defense, Canada and the United States.
In January 1942 he took command of the heavy cruiser Wichita. From Scapa Flow the cruiser worked on the northern convoy route to Murmansk. The Soviet Union awarded him the Order of Kutuzov, second class, and Britain awarded him the Distinguished Service Order. He later commanded Battleship Division Four and the Fifth Amphibious Force under Admiral Raymond A. Spruance in the Central Pacific offensive. He commanded the Southern Force at Tarawa in the Gilberts campaign and in the invasions of Majuro, Eniwetok, and Tinian. His Pacific war service also included the Marianas and Palau operations and the battles for Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The Navy awarded him two Distinguished Service Medals.
After the war he became the first head of the National War College, which opened in 1946. From 1950 to 1952 he was Superintendent of the Naval Academy. He lived in retirement in Annapolis and died of cancer on 19 July 1971, at the age of 81, in the Naval Hospital there. He was buried in the Naval Academy Cemetery.