Yates Stirling Jr.
On July 20, 1924, he became Captain of the Yard, Navy Yard, Washington, D.C., with additional duty as Assistant Superintendent of the Naval Gun Factory. He was promoted to rear admiral on October 6, 1926 and in December that year Stirling was designated Chief of Staff to Admiral Charles F. Hughes, Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, based at San Pedro, California. At the October 27, 1927 Navy Day Ceremonies at San Pedro harbor, despite an all-day downpour, thousands of Southern Californians gathered for the festivities, including ships' tours, band performances of patriotic music and the key-note address given by Stirling, "Merchant Marine, the Navy and the Nation".
Yates Stirling Jr.
During the three-month, first-class training cruise on the pre-Civil War sloop-of-war , before beginning his final academic year, Stirling and another cadet were ordered aloft during a severe squall to shorten sail and send down the topgallant and royal sail yards. "[s]queezing out tar on every handhold to prevent being blown out into space by the great force of the wind and the pressure of the solid sheets of rain", Stirling climbed up two vertical shrouds and Jacob's ladders to the top gallant yard, one-hundred and twenty feet above the deck. Succeeding in furling the sails and lowering the yards by "exerting every ounce of strength we could muster and while the gale was at its height", Stirling wrote in his memoirs forty years later, "The physical condition and the confidence acquired that enable you to hang, without batting an eye, by one hand in space with a yawning drop below you are things the modern sailor never attains. That sense of exaltation was well worth the price paid." Having been in the bottom third of his class during the first three years at Annapolis, in his final year of studies, Stirling found the courses more practical to the knowledge and skill he would need as a naval officer. Applying himself to ensure his standing would be high enough to be offered a commission, he improved his academic ranking that year and graduated from the United States Naval Academy on 3 June 1892, twenty-second in a class of forty.