Ships
- USS Craven (DD-382) Captain, 1 February 1945 – 10 July 1945
- USS Laws (DD-558) Captain from 24 September 1945
Lieutenant Commander Robert Edward Sinnott commanded two United States Navy destroyers in 1945, first in the last campaigns against Japan and then in the occupation that followed the surrender. He held the rank of lieutenant commander when he became captain of each ship.
On 1 February 1945 he took command of Craven (DD-382), a Gridley-class destroyer built before the war for the fast screen of the fleet. He remained her captain until 10 July 1945. By the time he came aboard, Craven was a Pacific veteran. Under his command she served through the drive on the home islands, including the seizure of Iwo Jima, where landings began on 19 February, and the long battle for Okinawa that opened on 1 April.
A destroyer on that duty lived in the screen. Craven kept station on the carriers and the amphibious ships, watched for submarines, and met Japanese aircraft, including the kamikaze attacks that hung over the Okinawa fleet. Sinnott’s work was the ordinary and exacting command of such a ship: the watch bill, the gunnery, the engineering plant, and the care of a crew that had already spent years at sea.
He left Craven on 10 July 1945. On 24 September 1945 he became captain of Laws (DD-558), a Fletcher-class destroyer armed with five 5-inch guns and fresh from hard service at the Marianas, in the Philippines, and off Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Japan had surrendered on 2 September. Sinnott therefore took Laws after the fighting, when the ship had turned to occupation duty in Japanese waters.
As her captain he had a veteran destroyer and a crew shifting from combat steaming to patrols, escorts, and the movement of men while the fleet took hold of Japanese ports and began sending ships home. His command of Laws opened on 24 September 1945, in the quiet and still demanding months when a lieutenant commander’s responsibility was to bring a wartime destroyer through the end of the campaign.