Ships
- USS Nevada (BB-36) Captain from 12 July 1930 · Relieved on 30 April 1932
John Joseph Hyland was born in England on 27 March 1878. He had come to the United States by 1896, when he received an appointment to the Naval Academy from Massachusetts. He graduated with the Class of 1900 and was commissioned an ensign on 1 July 1902. In the years of peace that followed he was promoted to lieutenant on 1 July 1905 and to lieutenant commander on 1 July 1911.
The First World War brought faster advancement. He was made a temporary captain on 15 August 1918 and soon afterward took command of the protected cruiser Cleveland, which he left early in 1919. His permanent rank of captain was dated 31 December 1921.
The next decade mixed sea commands with duty ashore. He commanded the repair ship Vestal from 1921 to 1923 and the light cruiser Raleigh from 1926 to 1928. On 2 February 1928 he became Captain of the Yard at the Boston Navy Yard and held that post until June 1930.
On 12 July 1930 he relieved Hilary Herbert Royall as captain of Nevada. The battleship had finished a long modernization earlier that year and was serving with the fleet in the Pacific. She had first gone into commission in March 1916, with William Sowden Sims as her commanding officer. Hyland's own tour was peacetime fleet service. William S. Pye relieved him on 30 April 1932.
Passed over for rear admiral, Hyland was placed on the retired list on 30 June 1935. He died on 24 November 1949. His son, John Joseph Hyland Jr., born in Philadelphia in 1912, graduated from the Naval Academy in 1934 and later served as an admiral in command of the Pacific Fleet from 1967 to 1970.