page_title: James L. Holloway Jr.
section_title: USS Iowa
hierarchical_section_title: James L. Holloway Jr. / World War II / USS Iowa
caption_attribution_description: View of battleship USS Iowa in Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, Drydock No. 4, San Francisco, looking northeast
context_page_description: James Lemuel Holloway Jr. was a four-star admiral in the United States Navy who served as superintendent of the United States Naval Academy from 1947–1950; as Chief of Naval Personnel from 1953–1957; and as commander in chief of all United States naval forces in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean from 1957–1959, in which capacity he commanded the 1958 American intervention in Lebanon. As founder of the Holloway Plan, he was responsible for creating the modern Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps.
  Holloway was the father of four-star admiral and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral James L. Holloway III. As of 2019, they are the only father and son to both serve as four-star admirals in the United States Navy while on active duty, as opposed to being promoted to that rank posthumously or at retirement.
context_section_description: Holloway assumed command of the battleship Iowa, flagship of Battleship Division 7, in November 1944. Under his command, Iowa took part in attacks on Luzon later that month, shooting down many enemy aircraft, and participated in strikes on the Japanese homeland from March–July 1945. For commanding Iowa during these operations, he received a Gold Star in lieu of a second Legion of Merit, with the following citation: "With his vessel operating as flagship of several important striking and covering forces...Holloway rendered distinguished service throughout the intensive actions and, by his brilliant leadership and outstanding skill, contributed materially to the extensive and costly damage inflicted on the enemy."
  Holloway operated his battleship with characteristic flair, recalled Rear Admiral Ralph Kirk James, who had been the maintenance officer responsible for repair work on damaged ships at Manus when Iowa arrived at that base to fix shafting problems on 25 December 1944. "Jimmy Holloway was charging up the harbor with this big battleship, the biggest I'd seen, and I was getting more and more nervous." Alarmed, James warned Holloway to reduce his speed before entering the drydock. "'Oh no,' [Holloway] said...He got the ship just about halfway into the dry dock when he ordered full speed astern. The Iowa shook like a damned destroyer and stopped just where she was supposed to be." Unfortunately, the backwash from the engine reversal swept away the drydock support blocks from underneath the ship, and James and his crew had to spend an extra three hours resetting the blocks before Iowa could dock. Afterward, James discovered a grey streak in his hair. "I can tell you the moment it was born: when Holloway pulled his high-speed throttle-jockey stunt on me."
  Despite being captain of the premier surface vessel in the U.S. Navy, Holloway recognized that naval aviation had become dominant. Soon after assuming command of Iowa, he wrote an urgent letter to his son, Lieutenant James L. Holloway III, who was following in his father's footsteps as a junior officer on a destroyer, to advise the young lieutenant to abandon his promising career in the surface Navy to become a naval aviator as soon as possible. "The war in the Pacific is being won by the carriers. The future of the U.S. Navy lies in naval aviation." Lieutenant Holloway promptly applied for flight training and went on to captain the nuclear aircraft carrier Enterprise, the premier aviation vessel of its era.
caption: Iowa in drydock, San Francisco, California, 1945.
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