Edward Hale Campbell: a Navy Cross in command

1872 – 1946

Edward Hale Campbell was born in South Bend on 4 October 1872 and served in the United States Navy from 1893 to 1936, through the Spanish–American War and the First World War, retiring as a vice admiral. In the First World War he commanded the protected cruiser USS Charleston (C-22) on the transport and convoy routes to Europe, and it is for that command that the Navy decorated him. His Navy Cross citation, as the Navy Department itself published it in its official compendium of the war's citations, reads: "For distinguished service in the line of his profession as commanding officer of the U.S.S. Charleston, engaged in the important, exacting and hazardous duty of transporting and escorting troops and supplies to European ports through waters infested with enemy submarines and mines." The entry prints the citation in the Navy's own terms: the First World War Navy Cross was awarded for distinguished service in positions of great responsibility as well as for heroism in action, and Campbell's is of the service kind — the record of a South Bend-born captain who brought his ship and her convoys through the submarine zone. After the Charleston he commanded the Naval Training Station at Newport, and in 1925 he stood as the Navy's Judge Advocate General. He died on 11 December 1946.

Sources:

1. Harry R. Stringer (ed.), The Navy Book of Distinguished Service (Fassett Publishing Co., 1921) — the Navy Department's official compendium; Campbell's Navy Cross citation at page 62, read first-hand in the digitized text (Internet Archive).
2. Marquis Who's Who, Who Was Who in American History, the Military (1975), p. 82 — birth, service span, Charleston command, Newport command, Judge Advocate General, death; as carried in his biographical record and the Military Times Hall of Valor recipient listing.