Austin M . Knight Austin Melvin Knight ( December 16 , 1854 - February 26 , 1927 ) was an admiral in the United States Navy . He was commander in chief of the U . S . Asiatic Fleet from 1917 to 1918 . His textbook " Modern Seamanship " was a standard reference for over eight decades . Early career . Born in Ware , Massachusetts to future American Civil War veteran Charles Sanford Knight and Cordelia Cutter Knight , Austin Melvin Knight was appointed to the U . S . Naval Academy from Florida on June 30 , 1869 , graduating in 1873 . After service as a passed midshipman , he was commissioned ensign on July 16 , 1874 . He served in various sea and shore assignments over the next two decades , including tours at the Naval Academy , and in " Tuscarora " , " Constellation " , " Chicago " , " Monongahela " , and " Lancaster " . During the Spanish - American War Knight served as navigator aboard the new monitor " Puritan " , participating in the blockade of Cuba and the taking of Puerto Rico in 1898 . After attending the Naval War College at Newport in 1901 , he commanded the armed yacht " Yankton " off the Cuban coast from 1901 to 1903 , and the gunboat " Castine " in the Atlantic from 1903 to 1904 . During the next three years , he presided over a naval ordnance board and a joint Army - Navy board on smokeless powder . Knight was promoted to captain in 1907 and given command of the armored cruiser " Washington " in the Pacific . He resumed the presidency of the naval ordnance board in 1909 . Court martial . In November 1910 , the monitor " Puritan " was wrecked by an explosion of four hundred pounds of gelatin during ordnance tests being conducted under Knight ' s direction . The board of inquiry reported that the monitor had been allowed to sink into the mud despite having remained afloat for twenty - two hours , subsequently requiring the services of a wrecking company to raise . Congress blamed Knight for this perceived lapse and ordered that he be prosecuted for " culpable negligence and inefficiency in the performance of duty " . A court - martial of seven rear admirals convened at the Norfolk Navy Yard , and honorably acquitted Knight . Secretary of the Navy George von Lengerke Meyer disapproved the finding and referred the case back to the court for reconsideration , but the court reaffirmed Knight ' s acquittal and he was restored to active duty . Knight was placed under arrest while on trial , and his wife fell ill and died during his detainment . The court - martial also threatened to derail his previously scheduled promotion to rear admiral . His private and professional travails coupled with the perception that he had been scapegoated by the political establishment made him a sympathetic figure among his fellow officers . Flag rank . Following his acquittal , Knight was promoted to rear admiral in May 1911 ( backdated to January 29 ) and assigned to command the Narragansett Bay Naval Station . He served as commander in chief of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet from 1912 to 1913 , interrupted by temporary duty to command a special squadron consisting of the " Tennessee " and " Montana " that was dispatched to the Eastern Mediterranean in November 1912 to protect American citizens in Turkey during the Balkan War . As President of the Naval War College from December 15 , 1913 to February 16 , 1917 , Knight was extensively quoted in Hudson Maxim ' s influential 1915 book " Defenseless America " , which exhorted America to rearm . Knight aligned himself with naval reformers such as Bradley Fiske and William Sims who agitated for a navy general staff headed by a strong chief of naval operations with authority to command both the line and the bureaus . President Woodrow Wilson and Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels strongly opposed the idea , and Wilson instructed Daniels to reprimand Knight after he publicly advocated a general staff in a speech in New York City . Commander in Chief , U . S . Asiatic Fleet . On May 22 , 1917 , Knight raised his flag aboard the armored cruiser Brooklyn as commander in chief of the Asiatic Fleet with the temporary rank of admiral . He directed American naval operations during the Allied intervention at Vladivostok during the Russian Civil War , and was chairman of the ten - nation council tasked with preserving order in the Russian Far East . Knight relinquished command on December 7 , 1918 and reverted to his permanent rank of rear admiral . He transferred to the retired list on December 16 , 1918 . Knight Board of Awards . Knight was recalled to active duty from March 13 , 1919 until June 30 , 1920 to serve as Senior Member of the Board of Awards . No medals had been awarded for naval service during World War I prior to the armistice , so on March 6 , 1919 , Secretary Daniels appointed Knight to head a board to review all recommendations of commanding officers for the Medal of Honor , Distinguished Service Medal , and Navy Cross , and to submit a uniform list of recommended honors . The board comprised Knight and eight other retired officers , a roster that drew harsh criticism as most of the board members had retired prior to America ' s entry into the war and none had any personal familiarity with conditions in the war zone . ( Knight himself had spent the war in a distant theater . ) The Knight Board was in session from March 17 , 1919 to October 31 , 1919 , when it was suddenly dissolved by Secretary Daniels before completing its work and before many of the most important recommendations had been received . Daniels disregarded most of the board ' s recommendations and drew up his own list of awards . Daniels ' list aroused immediate outrage for its perceived caprice ; in particular , every commanding officer of a ship that had been sunk by the enemy received the Distinguished Service Medal , while many commanding officers of ships that sank enemy vessels received no medal . Many officers refused the medals awarded them , most prominently Admiral William Sims . Daniels hastily reconvened the Knight Board , but the second session ' s recommendations fared little better than the first , as the final decision over which medals to award remained the sole prerogative of the Secretary of the Navy . The awards fiasco led directly to the creation of a largely independent Navy Department Board of Decorations and Medals . Legacy . Knight died February 26 , 1927 , at Washington , D . C . , and was buried at the Naval Academy Cemetery . He was President of the Naval Historical Foundation from 1926 until his death . On November 17 , 1930 , he was posthumously advanced to admiral on the retired list with date of rank February 26 , 1927 , in recognition of his World War I service . Knight was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for meritorious service as commander in chief of the Asiatic Fleet during Allied naval operations at Vladivostok , Siberia . He was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Rising Sun by the government of Japan . In 1901 , Knight wrote " Modern Seamanship " , a guide to shiphandling and safety which became famous as the sailor ' s bible for pleasure boaters and professional seamen alike . The textbook was repeatedly updated for over eighty years , publishing its eighteenth edition in 1988 . He married the former Elizabeth Harwood Welsh on April 29 , 1886 , and they had three children , Dorothy , Richard , and Katharine , the latter of whom married World War II amphibious commander Rear Admiral Forrest B . Royal . A younger sister , Bertha Knight Landes , served as mayor of Seattle , Washington from 1926 to 1928 , the first female mayor of a major American city . Another younger sister , Jessie Knight Jordan , married Stanford University president David Starr Jordan . Namesake . He was the namesake of the destroyer USS " Knight " ( DD - 633 ) , launched on September 27 , 1941 and sponsored by his granddaughter , Elizabeth H . Royal .