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Contact Info
Home Town Utica, NY
Last Address Honolulu, HI
Date of Passing Feb 06, 1956
Location of Interment U.S. Naval Academy Cemetery and Columbarium (VLM) - Annapolis, Maryland
Wall/Plot Coordinates 01-0131 A
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
William Garrett Greenman was born on August 26, 1888, in Utica, New York. He entered the navy in June 1909, just short of his twenty-first birthday, having been appointed a midshipman from his home state on June 26, 1908. He graduated from the Naval Academy with the class of 1912. His first assignment was to the battleship North Dakota and the commissioning of the gunboat Sacramento (PG-19).
World War I found Greenman raising to the rank of lieutenant commander as he spent time aboard the battleships Nevada and Florida. By the late 1920's Greenman was given his own ship, assuming command of the destroyer Preston DD-327 followed by the Brooks DD-232. In April 1934, the same month that the Astoria was commissioned, Greenman was made a commander.
The outbreak of World War II in Europe found Greenman, with the rank of captain, in command of a destroyer squadron. The ships were part of what was known as the Atlantic Squadron operating off America's East Coast. The destroyers became part of the Neutrality Patrol, whose purpose was to show the world that the United States Navy was ready and able to deend the Western Hemisphere. Greenman later became chief of staff to Commander Destroyers, Atlantic Fleet. During his tenure he assisted in the transfer of fifty old destroyers to the British. On May 16, 1942, he received orders to report to the Pacific as the new commanding officer of the Astoria.
Having a new commanding officer come aboard can cause a level of uneasiness among a ship's crew. No one for sure knows what to expect. By the time the Guadalcanal operation had begun, word spread around the Astoria that the new captain had a sense of humor. It was a boost to moral to know that Greenman was a so-called regular.
The USS Astoria CA-34 was sunk at the battle of Savo Island on August 9, 1942. Captain Greenman received the Legion of Merit for his gallant attempts to save the sinking ship. A second LM was awarded to Captain William G. Greenman, Head of the Advanced Base Planning Section. He was responsible for the general planning and coordination of the establishment of all advanced bases in the Central Pacific Area (CincPac and CincPoa)during 1943 until January 1944.
In 1945, Wm. G. Greenman was Director, Office of Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves. He retired with the rank of Commodore.
Central Pacific Campaign (1941-43)/Battle of Midway
From Month/Year
June / 1942
To Month/Year
June / 1942
Description The Battle of Midway in the Pacific Theater of Operations was one of the most important naval battles of World War II. Between 4 and 7 June 1942, only six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, the United States Navy (USN), under Admirals Chester W. Nimitz, Frank Jack Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance decisively defeated an attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, Chuichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondo on Midway Atoll, inflicting irreparable damage on the Japanese fleet. Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare." It was Japan's first naval defeat since the Battle of Shimonoseki Straits in 1863.
The Japanese operation, like the earlier attack on Pearl Harbor, sought to eliminate the United States as a strategic power in the Pacific, thereby giving Japan a free hand in establishing its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Japanese hoped that another demoralizing defeat would force the U.S. to capitulate in the Pacific War and thus ensure Japanese dominance in the Pacific.
The Japanese plan was to lure the United States' aircraft carriers into a trap. The Japanese also intended to occupy Midway as part of an overall plan to extend their defensive perimeter in response to the Doolittle air raid on Tokyo. This operation was also considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii itself.
The plan was handicapped by faulty Japanese assumptions of the American reaction and poor initial dispositions.Most significantly, American codebreakers were able to determine the date and location of the attack, enabling the forewarned U.S. Navy to set up an ambush of its own. Four Japanese aircraft carriers—Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu, all part of the six-carrier force that had attacked Pearl Harbor six months earlier—and a heavy cruiser were sunk at a cost of one American aircraft carrier and a destroyer. After Midway and the exhausting attrition of the Solomon Islands campaign, Japan's shipbuilding and pilot training programs were unable to keep pace in replacing their losses, while the U.S. steadily increased its output in both areas.
