Pacific ships

USN · Captain

Arnold, Murr Edward

All captains
Murr Edward Arnold

Portrait via NavSource Naval History (https://www.navsource.org/archives/03/../02/people/arnold_murr_e.jpg); presumed official U.S. Navy photograph, public domain as a U.S. government work. Status not individually verified.

Ships

Murr Edward Arnold was born on 12 December 1900 in Fayette County, Illinois, to Eli Massey Arnold, a railroad agent and later a merchant, and Mary M. (Holt) Arnold. A transcribed obituary gives his birthplace as Shobonier, Illinois. The family moved to Oklahoma and then to Idaho, and from Idaho he won an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1919. He graduated on 7 June 1923.

After service with the Asiatic Fleet he trained at Pensacola and received his naval aviator wings on 24 April 1926. In 1929 he won the Navy Pursuit Race at the National Air Races in Cleveland. He served in squadrons aboard Langley and Saratoga. In 1940 he led Bombing Squadron Five in Yorktown's air group.

In the first months of the Pacific War he was Yorktown's air officer. He planned the air strikes on Tulagi on 4 May 1942 and ran the flight deck through the Battle of the Coral Sea. For that service he received the Bronze Star with "V", and Captain Buckmaster recommended him for the Navy Cross. At Midway on 4 June 1942 he kept Yorktown's flight deck and aircraft working through heavy bombing and torpedo attacks, and received the Silver Star. Back in the United States he was director of personnel and training for Commander Fleet Air, West Coast, until May 1944, and received the Legion of Merit.

From 10 January 1945 to the end of the war he commanded the escort carrier Fanshaw Bay, flagship of Carrier Division 26, which supported the Okinawa landings. Her air group flew more than 2,000 sorties there, and the ship received the Presidential Unit Citation. Later commands listed by the Navy Memorial include the light carrier Princeton (CVL-23) and Carrier Division 4. He was also Commander Fleet Air, Alameda, Commander Naval Air Bases, Twelfth Naval District, and Commandant of the Eleventh Naval District. He was promoted to rear admiral on 1 July 1951.

He married Gala C. (Franklin) Mills and adopted her two daughters. He died in San Diego County, California, on 13 April 1991, at age 90.

Legacy

He was a carrier air officer at both Coral Sea and Midway, and later commanded an escort carrier at Okinawa.

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