Ships
- USS Topeka (CL-67) Captain from 1 August 1947 · Relieved on 1 June 1948
Ralph Earle Jr. had Topeka (CL-67) from 1 August 1947 to 1 June 1948. NavSource lists him as captain and gives his final rank as vice admiral. Those dates are also the dates on his Find a Grave memorial. He is not his father. The memorial lists the father as Adm. Ralph M. Earle, 1874–1939.
Uboat.net and the memorial agree on the birth, 22 December 1900, at Annapolis, Maryland, and on the death, 7 September 2000, at Siler City, North Carolina, aged 99. The memorial places the burial at the United States Naval Academy Cemetery.
Uboat.net gives the Naval Academy class of 1922 and the ranks lieutenant commander from 23 June 1938, temporary commander from 1 January 1942, commander from 30 June 1942, and temporary captain from 1 April 1943. It states that it has no career narrative beyond the tables. It dates command of Ralph Talbot (DD-390) from February 1941 to 9 July 1942. The memorial gives the start as 1 February 1941 and the same end.
The memorial says Ralph Talbot was with the fleet moored at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, that she shot down three Japanese planes, and that she survived with minimal damage. Uboat.net says only that she was present, as part of the 2nd destroyer flotilla, and points to an action report it does not reproduce. The three planes are the memorial's sentence. The same memorial says that as a commander he was with the Pacific Fleet at Midway and on the raids on Wake and Marcus. It does not name the ship for that duty. Uboat.net's command of Ralph Talbot ends on 9 July 1942, after Midway. His Topeka command is postwar. NavSource and the memorial both run it from 1 August 1947 to 1 June 1948. DANFS has the cruiser, in that span, leaving for the Orient on 22 September 1947, patrolling the north China coast from Shanghai and Tsingtao, entering Nagasaki on 8 March 1948, and reaching Long Beach on 7 May.
The memorial says his last command was the Newport Navy Base, from 1955 to 1957, and that he retired as a vice admiral. Uboat.net does not carry the later duty.