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Shane Laemmel, MR3
to remember
Kidd, Jr., Isaac, ADM.
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Contact Info
Home Town Cleveland, Ohio
Last Address Alexandria, Virginia
Date of Passing Jun 27, 1999
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Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
Isaac C. Kidd Jr., 79, Admiral And Expert on Maritime Law
By WOLFGANG SAXON
Published: July 4, 1999
Adm. Isaac Campbell Kidd Jr., who capped a 40-year Navy career by becoming an authority on the Law of the Sea, died on June 27 at his home in Alexandria, Va. He was 79.
The cause was prostate cancer, said a spokesman for the John M. Taylor Funeral Home in Annapolis, Md.
Admiral Kidd retired in 1978 as commander in chief of the Atlantic Fleet and supreme commander of NATO forces in the Atlantic. He then put his expertise to work for various public agencies in Washington, lectured widely on maritime law in the United States and abroad and taught a course on the subject at the College of William and Mary.
In 23 years of sea duty, he commanded destroyers, destroyer divisions and Navy fleets in the Mediterranean, the Pacific and the Atlantic.
As chief of materiel at the Pentagon in the early 1970's, he oversaw Navy procurement, logistics and labor relations and supervised 350,000 uniformed and civilian personnel.
The admiral, who was known as Ike, was born into a Navy family in Cleveland and graduated from the United States Naval Academy, at Annapolis, in 1942. His father, Rear Adm. Isaac Kidd Sr., was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, aboard his flagship, the battleship Arizona.
As a newly commissioned officer, Ensign Kidd was assigned to convoy duty in the North Atlantic. He later served as a gunnery officer aboard a destroyer in the Allied landings in Sicily and Italy, and finished the war in the Pacific theater.
He received his first destroyer command shortly after the war ended, and then alternated between sea and shore assignments before becoming a full admiral in 1971.
Admiral Kidd led an inquiry into the Israeli attack on the American intelligence ship Liberty in the Mediterranean off the Sinai Peninsula during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, an attack that killed 34 officers and men and wounded 171 others. Israel said the Liberty had been mistaken for an Egyptian ship, but the inquiry concluded that the Israeli attack was unprovoked.
Admiral Kidd was chief of the Naval Materiel Command from 1971 to 1975 before he assumed his final Atlantic and NATO commands. His decorations included the Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star.
He was a member and past president of the International Scuba Association and of the Italian Society of Military Engineers.
Admiral Kidd is survived by his wife of 57 years, Marie Angelique de Golian Kidd; three sons, Isaac I. 3d, of Annapolis, Kevin G., of Portland, Ore., and Christopher A., of Alexandria; three daughters, Marie Angelique de Golian Smith of Bexley, Ohio, Regina I. Wolbarsht of McLean, Va., and Mary C. Littlepage Plumer of Atlanta; 17 grandchildren, and a great-grandchild.
Other Comments:
World War II/Asiatic-Pacific Theater/Southern Philippines Campaign (1945)
From Month/Year
February / 1945
To Month/Year
July / 1945
Description On 10 March 1945, the U.S. Eighth Army—under Lt. Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger—was formally ordered by Gen. Douglas MacArthur to clear the rest of Mindanao, with the start of Operation VICTOR V, with expectations that the campaign would take four months. Eichelberger had misgivings about the projected timetable for the operation, but nonetheless, his Eighth Army staffers came up with a more effective plan.
Instead of the expected headlong frontal assault on the Japanese defenses, the plan called for securing a beachhead at Illana Bay in the undefended west, then a drive eastward more than a 100 mi (160 km) through jungle and mountains to strike from the rear. The objective, which called for achieving surprise and pressing forward quickly and aggressively by the invading forces, deemed Eichelberger, could unhinge the Japanese both physically and psychologically. The key to the operation's success involved the beachhead performance of the landing force and the ability of the participating units to maintain the momentum of their attack, preempting Japanese reactions, and hopefully before the rainy season started which would complicate movement in the island.
Ground operations were assigned to X Corps under Maj. Gen. Franklin C. Sibert, with Maj. Gen. Roscoe B. Woodruff's 24th Infantry Division and Maj. Gen. Clarence A. Martin's 31st Infantry Division as principal combat units. Amphibious Task Group 78.2 (TG 78.2)—under Rear Adm. Albert G. Noble—was tasked to carry the 24th Division and X Corps headquarters to the assault beaches near Malabang by 17 April to secure a forward airfield. Five days later, the 31st Division was expected to be in Parang, 20 mi (32 km) south, located near Highway 1, the route to Davao.
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
February / 1945
To Month/Year
July / 1945
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
Memories He next served as Gunnery Officer and later as Executive Officer in the destroyer PUTNAM, seeing action in the Leyte Gulf, Saipan and Tinian operations; Iwo Jima; radar picket duty and gunfire support off Okinawa; the rescue of the few survivors of the destroyer TWIGGS, sunk by kamikaze attack, and, assisted in salvage of the battleship PENNSYLVANIA, hit at Buckner Bay.