This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Robert Cox, YNCS
to remember
Sprague, Clifton Albert F (Ziggy), VADM USN(Ret).
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Contact Info
Home Town Dorchester, MA
Last Address San Diego, CA
Date of Passing Apr 11, 1955
Location of Interment Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery (VA) - San Diego, California
Notable career events:
- Entered the U.S. Naval Academy in June 1914 and graduated one year early on June, 28, 1917 in response to World War 1.
- Nicknamed "Ziggy" at the USNA.
- Served in the Atlantic on the Gun Boat Wheeling during World War 1 employed on combat patrol and escort duties in the Azores and Gibraltar areas.
- Was designated as one of the Navy's first 300 Flight Officers in August 1921.
- Credited with assisting inventor Carl Norden with improvements to aircraft carrier arresting gear on Lexington and Saratoga in the late 1920s.
- Was the first U.S. Navy Pilot to fly a non-stop round trip flight from Hawaii to Midway Island in February 1934.
- Was CO of Sea Plane Tender Tangier during the Japanese Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941.
- Commanded the fast carrier Wasp in 1943 and 1944.
- Promoted to Rear Admiral in July 1944.
- His Task Unit 77.4.3 fought off the superior Japanese Centre Force at Leyte Gulf (Battle Off Samar) on October 25, 1944.
- Served as Commander of Carrier Division 26 at Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
- Commanded Carrier Division 2, embarked on USS Ticonderoga (CV-14) which operated against the Japanese home islands of Kyushu, Honshu, and Hokkaido in the summer of 1945.
- Was Commander, Navy Air Group for Operation Crossroads nuclear tests in July 1946.
- In November 1950, was the first U.S. Navy Admiral to fly over the North Pole.
- The guided missile frigate USS Clifton Sprague (FFG-16) commissioned March 21, 1981.
- Inducted into the Carrier Aviation Hall of Fame in 1985.
Other Comments:
Navy Cross
Awarded for Actions During World War II
Service: Navy
Division: Task Unit 77.4.3
General Orders: Commander 7th Fleet: Serial 0193 (January 19, 1945)
Citation: The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Rear Admiral Clifton Albert F. Sprague, United States Navy, for extraordinary heroism and distinguished service in the line of his profession as Commander, Task Unit SEVENTY-SEVEN POINT FOUR POINT THREE (TU-77.4.3), consisting of six escort carriers and aboard the U.S.S. FANSHAW BAY (CVE-70), in action against the enemy from 18 through 25 October 1944. Rear Admiral Sprague furnished air support to amphibious attack groups landing troops on the shores of Leyte Gulf, Philippine Islands. On 25 October 1944, this Task Unit was taken under fire by a strong enemy force consisting of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, and was under air attack from Japanese suicide dive bombers. In the face of overwhelming enemy fire power and speed he repeatedly launched aircraft against the enemy Fleet, directed torpedo attacks by the screen, and so skillfully maneuvered his force that only two of his carriers were lost. His stubborn defense and damage inflicted on the enemy ships by ships and aircraft of his command was a major factor contributing to the Japanese decision to retire from the Battle of Samar Island. Admiral Sprague's personal courage and determination in the face of overwhelming enemy surface gunfire and air attack were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.
Description Operation Crossroads was a pair of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. They were the first nuclear weapon tests since Trinity in July 1945, and the first detonations of nuclear devices since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The purpose of the tests was to investigate the effect of nuclear weapons on warships.
The Crossroads tests were the first of many nuclear tests held in the Marshall Islands, and the first to be publicly announced beforehand and observed by an invited audience, including a large press corps. They were conducted by Joint Army/Navy Task Force One, headed by Vice Admiral William H. P. Blandy rather than by the Manhattan Project, which had developed nuclear weapons during World War II. A fleet of 95 target ships was assembled in Bikini Lagoon and hit with two detonations of Fat Man plutonium implosion-type nuclear weapons of the kind dropped on Nagasaki, each with a yield of 23 kilotons of TNT (96 TJ).
The first test was Able. The bomb was named Gilda after Rita Hayworth's character in the 1946 film Gilda, and was dropped from the B-29 Superfortress Dave's Dream of the 509th Bombardment Group on July 1, 1946. It detonated 520 feet (158 m) above the target fleet and caused less than the expected amount of ship damage because it missed its aim point by 2,130 feet (649 m). The second test was Baker. The bomb was known as Helen of Bikini and was detonated 90 feet (27 m) underwater on July 25, 1946. Radioactive sea spray caused extensive contamination. A third deep-water test named Charlie was planned for 1947 but was canceled primarily because of the United States Navy's inability to decontaminate the target ships after the Baker test. Ultimately, only nine target ships were able to be scrapped rather than scuttled. Charlie was rescheduled as Operation Wigwam, a deep-water shot conducted in 1955 off the California coast.
Bikini's native residents agreed to evacuate the island, and were evacuated on board the LST-861, with most moving to the Rongerik Atoll. In the 1950s, a series of large thermonuclear tests rendered Bikini unfit for subsistence farming and fishing because of radioactive contamination. Bikini remains uninhabited as of 2015, though it is occasionally visited by sport divers. Planners attempted to protect participants in the Operation Crossroads tests against radiation sickness, but one study showed that the life expectancy of participants was reduced by an average of three months. The Baker test's radioactive contamination of all the target ships was the first case of immediate, concentrated radioactive fallout from a nuclear explosion. Chemist Glenn T. Seaborg, the longest-serving chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, called Baker "the world's first nuclear disaster."
