Commodore ( United States ) Commodore is a former rank in the United States Navy and United States Coast Guard and a current honorary title in the U . S . Navy with an intricate history . Because the U . S . Congress was originally unwilling to authorize any admirals in its service until 1862 , considerable importance was attached to the office of commodore . Like its Royal Navy counterpart at the time , the U . S . Navy commodore was not a higher rank , but a temporary assignment for captains , as Herman Melville wrote in " White Jacket " , 1849 , Commodore was established as a temporary rank in the U . S . Navy during World War II and was discontinued in 1945 , its previous incumbents having all been advanced to Rear Admiral . Nearly forty years later , it was reinstated as an official rank with a paygrade of O - 7 , replacing the previously titled Rear Admiral ( lower half ) , which were flag officers paid as an O - 7 , but who wore the insignia of an O - 8 . In 1982 , following years of objections and complaints by the U . S . Army , U . S . Air Force and U . S . Marine Corps , the rank of Commodore was reinstated in the U . S . Navy and the U . S . Coast Guard . Later that year , the O - 7 paygrade in the U . S . Navy and U . S . Coast Guard was again redesignated as Rear Admiral ( lower half ) , but with the single star for collar insignia , single silver star for shoulder board insignia , and single broad gold sleeve stripe insignia for dress blue uniforms . History . The practice was not reserved to captains in the earlier days . Captain Isaac Hull , chafing at not being able to progress further in rank , wrote in 1814 that , if no admirals were to be authorized , something should be done to prevent " every midshipman that has command of a gunboat on a separate station taking upon himself the name of Commodore . " Eventually the title of commodore was defined more strictly , and was reserved for captains so designated by the Navy Department , although the practice of retaining the title for life added some confusion . In 1857 , Congress established the grade of Flag Officer . This generic title was intended " to promote the efficiency of the Navy , " but differed little from the previous practice . Like the courtesy - title commodores , " flag officers " reverted to captain once their squadron command assignment was completed . Civil War . Because of the acute need for officers at the beginning of the American Civil War , naval tradition was ignored and Commodore became for the first time a permanent commissioned rank in the U . S . Navy . Eighteen commodores were authorized on July 16 , 1862 . The rank title also lost its " line command " status when , in 1863 , the Chiefs of the Bureaus of Medicine and Surgery , Provisions and Clothing , Steam Engineering , and Construction and Repair were given the rank of Commodore . Flag Officer . The rank of Commodore continued in the Navy until 1899 , when the Naval Personnel Act made all Commodores into Rear Admirals . The reason , according to Laws Relating to the Navy , 1919 , was " . . . on account of international relationships , the consideration of which caused the Navy Department to regard the complications confronting it as inimical to the honor and dignity of this nation , because of the adverse effect upon its high ranking representatives in their association with foreign officers . " U . S . Navy Commodores were not being treated as flag - level officers by other navies , or given the respect the Navy Department thought was their due . As it would have been expensive to increase the pay of all the former Commodores to the level of Rear Admiral s , Congress specified that the lower half of the Rear Admiral list have pay equal to Brigadier General s of the Army . If there were an odd number of Rear Admirals , the lower half of the list was to be the larger . All Rear Admirals , upper or lower half , were equal to Major Generals , flew a blue flag with the requisite number of stars instead of a broad pennant , and were entitled to a thirteen gun salute . The U . S . Supreme Court later held that the rank of Commodore had been removed from the U . S . Navy , leaving it without a rank equivalent to Brigadier General . This act disgruntled Brigadier Generals , who could now be outranked by officers who were their juniors in terms of service . This was a point of inter - service controversy , and in 1916 the U . S . Army made its Brigadier Generals equivalent to Rear Admirals ( lower half ) . Thus , Rear Admirals ( upper half ) were equal to Major General s . World War II . During the naval expansion during World War II , the Navy Department was concerned that the appointment of more flag officers would create a glut of admirals after the war . However , some captains were holding commands of higher responsibility , and needed to be recognized . Admiral Ernest King proposed bringing back the old rank of commodore for these officers . President Franklin D . Roosevelt agreed , though he specified that this rank be restricted to line officers . The Navy ' s one - star officer rank subsequently reappeared in April 1943 with the title of Commodore . In practice , staff corps officers could also become commodores . By the end of the war , there were over one hundred commodores in service . Following the war , very few of the wartime commodores were promoted to rear admiral . Promotions to commodore ended in 1947 , and nearly all who had held the one - star rank had either been promoted to rear admiral or retired by 1950 . 1982 Commodore Admiral / 1983 Rear Admiral ( Lower Half ) . Following continued U . S . Army , U . S . Marine Corps , and by now , U . S . Air Force dissatisfaction with the U . S . Navy ' s and U . S . Coast Guard ' s policy of providing Rear Admirals ( Lower half ) in pay grade O - 7 with two star ( O - 8 ) rank insignia , the one star rank for naval and coast guard officers appeared again in 1982 , with the initial title of Commodore Admiral . In 1983 , after numerous protests to the Chief of Naval Operations and the Commandant of the Coast Guard about the new rabkt tiitle being unwieldy and confusing , Commodore Admiral was changed to simply Commodore . However , the title of Commodore had also been in continued use in the U . S . Navy since the 1950s as a position title for senior Captains who commanded Destroyer Squadrons , Submarine Squadrons , Amphibious Squadrons , Patrol Boat Flotillas , Patrol Hydrofoil Missile Ship Squadrons , Special Warfare Groups , Air Groups and Air Wings ( other than Carrier Air Groups / Carrier Air Wings who were known as " CAG " ) , Construction Regiments and other large seagoing commands . In contrast , the U . S . Coast Guard had never previously used the title . Later in 1983 , to prevent further confusion between the title of Commodore and the actual rank , the one star U . S . Navy and U . S . Coast Guard admiral rank was changed back to its original O - 7 pay grade title of Rear Admiral ( Lower Half ) . From that point on , Commodore has remained a title for U . S . Navy Captains in command of more than a single unit ( other than Captains commanding Carrier Air Wings , who retained their traditional title of " CAG " ) and all U . S . Navy and U . S . Coast Guard one star admirals were subsequently referred to as Rear Admiral ( Lower Half ) . Present day title usage . Military . The U . S . Navy no longer maintains a " rank " of Commodore , but the term has survived as a " title " . Modern - day Commodores in the U . S . Navy are senior Captains in command of Air Wings or Air Groups exclusive of Carrier Air Wings ; Destroyer , Cruiser , Amphibious , Mine Countermeasures Squadrons , or Riverine Squadrons ; Submarine Squadrons ; Coastal Warfare Groups ; Special Warfare ( SEAL ) Groups ; Explosive Ordnance Disposal ( EOD ) Groups ; and Naval Construction Regiments . Such officers are referred to , both orally and in correspondence , as " Commodore , " but wear the rank insignia of a Captain . Such officers also rate a blue and white broad pennant , known as a command pennant , which is normally flown from their headquarters facilities ashore or from ships on which they are embarked . This swallow - tailed pennant has a white field bounded by two horizontal blue stripes , with the numerical designation or the initials of the command title in blue centered on the white field . There are no Commodores in the U . S . Coast Guard . Civilian . The U . S . Coast Guard Auxiliary also employs variants of the title of Commodore . Members of the Auxiliary are civilian volunteers that do not have military rank , but do wear modified U . S . Coast Guard officer uniforms and military style officer rank insignia to indicate office . Auxiliary officers who have reached flag positions equivalent to active and reserve Rear Admirals and Vice Admirals , use the term Commodore ( e . g . , District Commodore , National Directorate Commodore , National Commodore , etc . ) . They , including the National Chief of Staff , may permanently append the title Commodore , sometimes abbreviated COMO , to their names ( e . g . , Commodore James A . Smith , National Commodore ; or COMO Jim Smith , ( NACO ) ) . Civilian yacht club s also tend to use the title for their leaders , along with " vice commodore " and " rear commodore " in the same manner as " vice president . "