Ships
- USS Nevada (BB-36) Captain from 14 January 1928 · Relieved on 12 July 1930
Hilary Herbert Royall was a captain in the United States Navy, a member of the Naval Academy class of 1899 who rose to battleship command in the years between the world wars. From 14 January 1928 to 12 July 1930 he was commanding officer of the battleship Nevada.
In the First World War he commanded the gunboat Paducah. The ship’s work was the steady, hazardous business of carrying troops and supplies and of escorting them through waters where enemy submarines and mines were a constant threat. For that service he received the Navy Cross.
On 9 September 1917 he became captain of the battleship Kentucky, an older pre-dreadnought completed at the turn of the century, succeeding Douglas Eugene Dismukes. He was still in command of Kentucky at the beginning of 1920, as the wartime fleet stood down and the Navy began laying up ships of her generation.
Royall took command of Nevada on 14 January 1928, relieving Clarence Selby Kempff. Nevada had commissioned in 1916 as the lead ship of a new American type, armed with ten 14-inch guns in two triple turrets and two twin turrets, and protected by armor concentrated over her magazines and machinery. In 1918 she had served with the American battleships attached to the British Grand Fleet. During his command she was well along in a modernization at the Norfolk Navy Yard that rebuilt her oil-fired boiler plant, raised the elevation of the main battery, added bulges for torpedo protection and heavier deck armor, and replaced her cage masts with tripods. He remained her captain through the close of that work and into the summer of 1930.
John Joseph Hyland relieved him on 12 July 1930. Royall retired from the Navy as a captain, with the Navy Cross for his command of Paducah, the wartime command of Kentucky, and two and a half years in Nevada behind him.