To most readers of U.S. history, such salty captains as John Paul Jones, Edward Preble, Oliver Hazard Perry and his brother Matthew Calbraith Perry are "commodores," though the term in their times was a courtesy title bestowed on commanders of squadrons. (Americans once thought "admiral" smacked of aristocracy.) Though George Dewey later became an admiral, at Manila Bay he was a commodore. Last fortnight, seafaring Franklin Roosevelt signed a bill restoring the rank of commodore to official status, which it occupied only between 1862 and 1899.*
To the rank of commodore the Navy...
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