A tombstone promotion is an advance in rank awarded at retirement. It is often an honorary promotion that does not include any corresponding increase in retired pay, whose only benefit is the right to be addressed by the higher rank and have it engraved on one's tombstone.
The term was originally coined to describe the one-grade retirement promotion authorized for United States Navy line officers in 1899 to induce aging American Civil War veterans to make way for younger officers. After postwar cutbacks following the Civil War and World War I, tombstone promotions were introduced to encourage early retirements and reduce the excessive number of officers recruited during wartime expansion, at the time including both the rank and retired pay of the higher grade.
Tombstone promotions are also incentives for officers to complete a full career in military communities that do not provide flag-rank opportunities. Until 1925, a lieutenant in a Navy staff corps could retire as a commodore after 40 years of service. Honorary tombstone promotions are still granted for this reason to long-serving permanent professors at the U.S. Military Academy and U.S. Air Force Academy, and to assistant judge advocates general of the Navy.
Tombstone promotions have also been granted to honor exceptional individual service, such as building the Panama Canal or commendable performance in combat. From 1925 to 1959, thousands of United States Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and Coast and Geodetic Survey officers retired with honorary one-grade promotions on the basis of combat citations awarded before the end of World War II. By May 1959, 1,222 of the 1,420 retired Navy rear admirals had never served in that grade on active duty, being captains who retired with an honorary promotion. The derisive nickname of "tombstone admiral" was sometimes used to describe these officers.
United States armed services
Civil War hump
Promotion stagnation
After the Civil War, promotions stagnated in the Navy because too many officers were recruited during the war. Wartime officers rose to higher grades at a relatively young age and could remain in service until retirement, resulting in a group of younger officers who were trapped in lower grades. For example, French E. Chadwick was commissioned ensign in 1866 and spent only a year as a lieutenant before being promoted to lieutenant commander in 1869 at the age of 25; George P. Colvocoresses was commissioned in 1870 and was only promoted to lieutenant in 1897, after 22 years in grade.Cogar (1991), pp. xi–xiii, 41–42, 51–52.
In 1881, to flatten the hump of unpromotable officers, a board chaired by Naval Academy superintendent Robert L. Phythian proposed that officers in excess of certain grade distributions be allowed to retire with the rank and retired pay of the next highest grade. Tombstone promotions as retirement incentives had been suggested as early as 1842, when the Senate Naval Affairs Committee proposed that senior captains, commanders, and lieutenants be encouraged to retire voluntarily by giving them the rank and half pay of the next higher grade. A decade later, the outgoing secretary of the Navy recommended compelling officers to retire for age or incapacity, with an honorary one-rank promotion to soften the blow. The Phythian Board's report eventually led Congress to tie a tombstone promotion to the Navy's first "plucking" board in 1899.Chisholm, pp. 181, 223, 404, 444, 454, 460.
1899 Navy Personnel Act The Navy Personnel Act of 1899 was a sweeping reform designed to revitalize the officer corps, especially at command ranks, by weeding out superannuated Civil War veterans. Line officers in the grades of captain, commander, and lieutenant commander would be mandatorily retired with the rank and three-fourths the sea pay of the next higher grade if they were selected by a board.Act of March 3, 1899 (). Chisholm, pp. 464–465. House Naval Affairs Committee member Amos J. Cummings drew an analogy to Army officers who were retired in the next higher grade if discovered to be physically disqualified by an examination for promotion to that grade, and explained the higher pay as a way to make up for the involuntary nature of the retirements.
Since the point of the law was to open more vacancies in higher ranks, Congress offered the same tombstone promotion to officers who retired voluntarily. "If we did not do it we would have very few applicants for retirement," said House Naval Affairs Committee chairman George E. Foss. "There must be an incentive for voluntary retirement." The incentives for voluntary retirement applied to all Navy officers with a creditable record that included service during the Civil War.
Although the Act had also abolished the rank of commodore for active service, it still maintained the retirement rank for Navy captains who were voluntarily or involuntarily retired. However, captains who received their tombstone promotions for service during the Civil War were retired as a rear admiral instead.
Neither the plucking board nor tombstone promotions substantially flattened the promotion hump, and promotion by seniority continued to advance officers close to retirement age. When rear admiral Robert M. Berry reached the mandatory retirement age of 62, the most senior captain was Harrison G. O. Colby, also 62. The second-ranking captain at the time, Leavitt C. Logan, was promoted to rear admiral only two days before retiring for age.
In 1912, Congress repealed the 1899 tombstone promotion system for all but Civil War veterans, specifying that Navy officers who applied for voluntary retirement or were selected for involuntary retirement would have the rank and three-fourths the sea pay of the grade from which retired.Act of August 22, 1912 (). The root causes of the promotion hump were not resolved until the late 1910s, when Congress replaced promotion by seniority with promotion by selection, and provided different mandatory retirement ages for each grade.
One-day generals
The Army, which had its own Civil War hump to flatten, created the equivalent of a tombstone promotion by advancing officers shortly before they retired, often with only a single day in the higher grade.
Among the brigadier general ranks in 1894, Frank Wheaton was promoted to major general ahead of John R. Brooke, who was more senior but younger, because Wheaton would retire for age only a month later. The same promotions were offered to James W. Forsyth and Zenas R. Bliss, on the condition that they retired after a week, allowing Brooke to become an active major general. After Brooke's retirement, the four brigadier general vacancies were filled by six colonels, two of whom also retired almost immediately, setting a precedent for the future. Between the end of the Spanish–American War and August 1901, 23 more colonels were promoted to brigadier general and promptly retired.
Navy officers made similar pacts to retire more officers in flag grades. In 1883, Asiatic Station commander Peirce Crosby agreed to step down a few months early so Alexander C. Rhind could be promoted to rear admiral the day before reaching retirement age. In July 1894, Asiatic Station commander Joseph S. Skerrett retired early to vacate his rear admiralcy for the senior commodore, Joseph P. Fyffe, who also promptly retired a few days later and was succeeded by Oscar F. Stanton, who also retired early after a few days. Stanton's replacement, Henry Erben, was rear admiral for five weeks, until his statutory retirement in September.Fyffe and Erben were older than Skerrett, so neither could be promoted to rear admiral unless Skerrett retired before them. Erben orchestrated the entire sequence, even paying for Skerrett to bring his family home from China and for the lost difference in active and retired pay.
In early 1903, the Senate passed an amendment to give Army officers with at least one year of service during the Civil War a similar tombstone promotion as provided in 1899 for Civil War veterans in the Navy, but the House rejected it. Undeterred, the War Department continued the administration's policy of rewarding Civil War veterans with more than 40 years of service by promoting them to brigadier general before they retired. From 1903 to 1906, another 62 colonels were promoted to brigadier general and retired after only one day in grade,. including three weeks in 1903 when 34 colonels were promoted and retired at the rate of one or two a day. Even after Congress provided a one-grade tombstone promotion for all Army officers with Civil War service in 1904, the administration continued to nominate one-day generals, lieutenant colonels and even a one-day major, John L. Bullis.
Congress finally required in 1906 that general officers serve at least one year in grade before retiring for reasons other than age or disability.Act of June 12, 1906 (). This largely ended the succession of one-day generals, except for occasional coincidences of age and deliberate promotions of incapacitated officers. For example, major general Adolphus W. Greely's 1908 retirement triggered a chain of promotions that elevated Charles Morris to brigadier general two days before he retired for age. In November 1923, brigadier generals Harry H. Bandholtz and William H. Hay were each promoted to major general and immediately retired for disability; Bandholtz had collapsed from heart problems in April and Hay was recovering from an automobile accident the previous year.
Civil War veterans The 1904 Army Appropriation Act authorized Army officers who had served in the Civil War to retire with the rank and retired pay of the next higher grade, if they were below the grade of brigadier general and retired for disability, age, or after 40 years of service. In 1906, Navy and Marine Corps officers meeting those criteria were granted the same tombstone promotions, as were Revenue Cutter Service officers in 1908.Acts of April 23, 1904 (); June 29, 1906 (); and April 16, 1908 (). In 1907, Army brigadier generals who held the rank for at least three years and had served in the Civil War could retire with the rank and retired pay of major general.Act of March 2, 1907 ().
World War I hump The massive World War I expansion and postwar drawdown of the Army and Navy created a new hump of excess officers in lower grades, which both services tried to flatten by again offering tombstone promotions for voluntary retirements, and also restricting length of service in each grade to force involuntary retirements.
In 1935, Congress invited Army officers below the grade of major, who had served during World War I and had 15 to 29 years of service, to retire voluntarily in the grade of major. By 1940, the World War I hump had advanced into field grades, so the tombstone promotion was updated to allow officers who had served during World War I to retire in the grade of lieutenant colonel if they had 23 to 28 years of service, or colonel if more than 28 years, and failed to reach those grades due to length-of-service restrictions.Acts of July 31, 1935 (), June 13, 1940 (), and August 7, 1947 [Officer Personnel Act of 1947] ().
Congress gave a similar tombstone promotion to the Navy in 1938, authorizing lieutenants with 21 years of service to retire in the grade of lieutenant commander if they had served in the Navy or Naval Reserve Force during World War I.Acts of June 23, 1938 (), October 14, 1940 (), and August 7, 1947 [Officer Personnel Act of 1947] ().
Building the Panama Canal
Following the completion of the Panama Canal in 1914, Congress authorized Army and Navy officers who had served more than three years with the Isthmian Canal Commission to be advanced one grade in rank upon retirement. Under this provision, Edgar Jadwin retired as a lieutenant general in 1929 and James F. Leys as a vice admiral in 1932, the first Army engineer and first Navy surgeon, respectively, to achieve three-star rank.