Ships
- USS South Dakota (BB-57) Captain from 17 March 1944 · Relieved on 30 November 1944
Ralph Smith Riggs, a Texan of the Naval Academy class of 1918, spent his career in the United States Navy and rose to vice admiral. In the Pacific War he commanded the fast battleship South Dakota during the fleet's advance through the Marianas and on to the Philippines.
He took command of South Dakota (BB-57) on 17 March 1944. The battleship was already a veteran of the Guadalcanal campaign and of the early Central Pacific strikes. Those actions lay behind her when he came aboard.
He was not in command on the night of 14–15 November 1942. Thomas L. Gatch was captain of South Dakota in that battle. Washington sank the Japanese battleship Kirishima. South Dakota did not.
Under Riggs, South Dakota operated with the fast carrier task forces. She screened the carriers in the late-March strikes on Palau, Yap, Ulithi, and Woleai, and in the April attacks that covered the Hollandia landings on New Guinea. In June she joined the bombardment of Saipan and then stood in the battle line during the Battle of the Philippine Sea. On 19 June a bomb from a Japanese aircraft struck the ship and killed and wounded members of the crew. South Dakota stayed with the fleet.
After the Philippine Sea she left for an overhaul at Puget Sound and was gone before the landings on Guam. She came back with the fast carriers in the autumn for the strikes on Okinawa, Formosa, and Luzon. She was not in the night action in Surigao Strait.
Riggs was relieved on 30 November 1944, after more than eight months in command. Those months had been spent in one operation after another, from the Marianas to Leyte. He remained in the Navy and later served as a vice admiral.