I know that in the Age of Sail the flagship was whichever ship the overall commander of the flotilla rode on and it was called such because, before radio, the means of communication was to raise flags on the command ship so the rest of the flotilla knew what to do.
In the modern navy is it just that…whichever ship has the person in charge of the overall group of ships is the flagship? If so, can that person choose any ship to ride on or is there a reason to choose a particular ship over all of the others?
Does a higher ranking officer on a different ship change things? (Say an admiral along for the ride but, while the highest ranking person there, not technically running the show.)
Also, is there a “flagship” that is just designated such because it is the pride of the navy?
In Star Trek (yes, fictional spaceships) the Enterprise is often referred to as the flagship of the fleet. But the Enterprise does its thing solo (no flotilla) and the Enterprise is, at best, a heavy cruiser in terms of ships Starfleet owns (i.e. they have a few bigger, theoretically more capable ships).
Does the US Navy have a ship they just really like and call that one the flagship of the navy? Which means nothing more than a point of pride for the ship?
I mean, maybe a Ticonderoga -class cruiser makes the most sense for the fleet commander to be on but the aircraft carrier at the center would be deemed the “flagship”.
An admiral needs facilities for himself and his staff, so certain ships will be better for the job. I think all aircraft carriers are used only as elements in a carrier group - and so all aircraft carriers are built to be flagships (i.e. to have the facilities that an admiral will need).
The Enterprise seems to be the “flagship” mostly metaphorically.
In the modern US Navy, the flagship is the ship that the commander of that flotilla is on. Someone not in the chain of command for the flotilla doesn’t make a difference to that. They’re usually going to pick the ship with the best command and control equipment since it makes their job easiest, but might pick something different for a particular mission.
There isn’t an officially designated flagship of the USN, but the USS Constitution (launched 1797) is the oldest ship in the Navy that is still seaworthy, and effectively takes that role.
I think it is just a personal choice of the admiral in question.
Chester Nimitz and Ernest King had WWII naval commands which were essentially land bound. Both worked out of office buildings. When Nimitz was named as Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet, he named a submarine as his flagship, the USS Grayling. (Nimitz had primarily been a submariner before reaching higher levels of command.) When King was named as Commander in Chief of the U.S. Navy Fleet, he named a yacht, the USS Dauntless, as his flagship. The Dauntless spent the war docked in the Washington Navy Yard and King would work in his office during the day and then go to the Dauntless each night and sleep.
I thought, these days, admirals mostly stayed on dry land. Doubtless they will go for rides sometimes but I thought the age of admirals and generals leading from the front were long gone.
You could be right. Looking around the Internet I find this https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=14158 which says that the “flag operations officer” (part of the admiral’s staff) worked on the ship itself, but the admiral could be ashore. The flagship still needs facilities for the flag staff, in that case.
You’re reading too much (or not enough) into that article. There is a strike group operations officer embarked in that case because the strike group is embarked, with its commander, a one-star admiral.
Most admirals are based ashore, yes, but when carriers deploy (as opposed to just doing independent operations for things like training along the US coast), they do so as part of a carrier strike group, usually commanded by a one-star admiral. Two numbered US fleets (numbered fleets being the staffs that are typically placed above strike groups in the chain of command while deployed), also have dedicated command ships which may or may not be embarked by the three-star fleet commander at any particular time. Those are Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean and Seventh Fleet in the western Pacific.
Fun fact: I am 100% certain, though, that the ship featured in the Navy press release you linked to (USS Enterprise, underway for Summer Pulse '04, specifically in July of 2004, as it says) had an admiral aboard (the strike group commander) because I was embarked as a midshipman for training at the time. He actually sat down and talked with us for about an hour. It was my first time underway on a Navy ship. Or, uh, any ship, really.
ETA: Other fun fact. For Fourth of July that year, we were (the whole ship was anchored out) in Portsmouth, England.
OMG, I am so embarrassed! I just looked at the pictures from that underway (confirmed: I have photographic evidence of the one-star admiral being embarked as strike group commander), and I was reminded that I threw up on the COD flight from Scotland out to the carrier. Super embarrassing.
Also worthy of note: The admiral (or other top brass) on the flagship does not act as the captain of that ship. The admiral is concerned with the flotilla as a whole, not with any single ship, and issues orders to all the ships’ captains, including the captain whose ship he’s on.
I think the OP already knew this, but others might not.
I was 20 at the time, but somehow I don’t recall if the drinking age allowed by the Navy was the local drinking age or if it was kept at 21. Possibly because I did not then, and still only very rarely now, drink alcohol. Can’t stand the taste of it. May have something with my having almost no sense of smell (and therefore a diminished sense of taste, too). To me, it mostly just burns. Regardless, given I was on board for all of a month and I was myself fairly young and not yet commissioned, they weren’t really relying on me to keep anyone from anything. I certainly appreciated the Royal Navy heritage, particularly as I had only recently gotten over a slight obsession with Horatio Hornblower. I mean, like, when I saw the sword belonging to the actual 1st Viscount Exmouth (Sir Edward Pellew) in a museum there… I mean, wow. Naturally, I toured HMS Victory as well (Nelson’s flagship at Trafalgar, to be somewhat back on topic).
Anyway…
Apart from carrier strike groups, the problem of which ship gets made “the flagship” becomes somewhat more interesting. While it’s rare to have an admiral embarked on anything but a carrier or a large amphibious assault ship that looks a whole lot like a carrier and pretty much is one in all but name, Commodores (a billet usually held by a Captain) in command of a squadron may at times embark one of their subordinate ships with some portion of the staff, in which case the flagship role may rotate, particularly if the ships are all of the same class and therefore no better or worse (and in most cases not designed) to embark a staff. Destroyers and smaller vessels, for instance, will usually have to perform some level of internal gymnastics to embark a staff. For strictly administrative purposes, the ships I’ve served on that have been under a Commodore have even had to rotate through nominal flagship duties while in port for… reasons that weren’t very important to me then, and that mean nothing to me now. But it normally involved flying the Commodores absentee pennant to indicate that he was not onboard (of course he wasn’t, why would he be aboard a ship in port when he has offices for himself and his staff adore???).
It used to be traditional that the officer in command of a fleet picked the largest and most powerful ship to be based on, and thus his flagship. However, in WWII it became apparent it was more important that the flagship have excellent communication equipment rather than powerful armament. The most powerful ships in the fleet might have other missions as well that would interfere with the commander’s coordination responsibilities. A smaller ship could stay in the middle of the fleet and just concentrate on coordination.
In WWII my father served on the USS Eldorado,, designed specifically to be an amphibious force command ship. It had extensive advanced communication equipment, but only enough armament to protect itself. (My father was an electrician’s mate, maintaining the electrical equipment below decks.) It served as the flagship for the invasion of Iwo Jima for Admiral Richmond K. Turner, Commander of Amphibious Forces, Pacific. Also on board were General Holland Smith, USMC, and Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal. It also served as press headquarters; the famous photo of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima was developed there. The Eldorado also served as Turner’s flagship for the invasion of Okinawa.
The flagship also should preferably have ‘flag facilities’ on board, otherwise a bunch of people have to be displaced from their cabins and/or work offices and be squeezed in some place else.
Ships in wartime are always overcrowded already and tend to become more so as more systems and the people to work them on a 24hr basis get crammed in.
Back in the two World Wars, some ships were built with extra quarters, etc, needed to the Admiral and his staff. Obviously, they often were picked. IIRC HMS Hood was designed as such.
Turner was also commander of Amphibious forces at Guadalcanal, where the fighting ships were drawn or chased away from the landing areas every night. This meant that if Turner wanted to stay with his command, he had to make a transport his flagship.
Stuart Baker is a one-star admiral and the commander of Carrier Strike Group 9, the one in the news.
From the article: In 2020, Baker was the commanding officer of Carrier Strike Group 9, deployed in the Pacific; he was stationed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt
I recall reading that one of the concerns about reinstating Brett Crozier was that they were both serving aboard the same ship.
Back to WWII, one of the factors of the poor American performance at the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal was that although some of the ships had the newer, far more advanced radar systems, the American commander did not chose one of those ships as his flagship.
I recently read a book about Midway. I can’t remember if it was both navies or just the Japanese, but the flagships for destroyer squadrons were actually cruisers. I suspect the destroyers didn’t have adequate living/office space and communications for the honor.
