Later Life
Kinkaid returned to the United States to replace Vice Admiral Herbert F. Leary as Commander Eastern Sea Frontier and Commander Sixteenth Fleet, making his home in the historic Quarters A, Brooklyn Navy Yard. He served on a board chaired by Fleet Admiral Halsey which also included Admirals Spruance, Towers and Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher, whose task was to nominate 50 of the 215 serving rear admirals for early retirement. Kinkaid was soon facing this fate himself, when the House Armed Services Committee sought to reduce the number of four-star rank officers in 1947. Kinkaid was one of three admirals, the others being Spruance and Hewitt, who would have to retire or be reduced in rank to rear admiral. After some lobbying, this was averted, and they were permitted to remain in the grade until 1 July 1950, past Kinkaid′s retirement age. Retirement ceremonies, including a parade through New York City, were held on 28 April 1950 and Kinkaid formally retired two days later.
In December 1946, it was announced that Halsey, Spruance and Turner had been awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal. A message soon arrived from MacArthur stating that he could not see why Kinkaid should not merit the same award, which had been recommended by Krueger during the war. The medal was duly presented by General Courtney Hodges in a ceremony on Governors Island on 10 April 1947. The Australian government chose to honor Kinkaid with an honorary Companion of the Order of the Bath, which was presented by the Ambassador at a ceremony at the embassy in Washington on Australia Day, 26 January 1948. Kinkaid had already been created Grand Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands in 1944. In March 1948, he was made a Grand Officer of the Order of Leopold and presented with the Croix de guerre with Palm in a ceremony at the Belgian embassy in Washington, D.C.
He served as the naval representative with the National Security Training Commission from 1951 until it was abolished in 1957. He also served with the American Battle Monuments Commission for fifteen years, beginning in 1953. In this capacity, he attended the dedication of the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial, Brittany American Cemetery and Memorial, Rhone American Cemetery and Memorial, Manila American Cemetery and Memorial and the East Coast Memorial. He also paid a visit to Australia and New Zealand in 1951. Until 1961, he attended the annual reunions held to celebrate General MacArthur's birthday, 26 January, joining MacArthur and his old colleagues, including Krueger and Kenney. Kinkaid died at Bethesda Naval Hospital on 17 November 1972 and was buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery on 21 November. The Navy decided to name a Spruance-class destroyer after him. The USS Kinkaid was launched by his widow Helen at the Ingalls Shipbuilding Division of Litton Industries at Pascagoula, Mississippi on 1 June 1974.
Read more about this topic: Thomas C. Kinkaid
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“I have all my life been on my guard against the information conveyed by the sense of hearing—it being one of my earliest observations, the universal inclination of humankind is to be led by the ears, and I am sometimes apt to imagine that they are given to men as they are to pitchers, purposely that they may be carried about by them.”
—Mary Wortley, Lady Montagu (1689–1762)