Standley for Pratt

The Navy Department last week announced a wholesale shakeup of 24 commands, due to age limits having been reached and tours of duty ended, to take effect throughout the year. Most important was the appointment of Vice Admiral William Harrison Standley, 60, to be Chief of Naval Operations, the Navy's No. 1 tactical post. At a date not yet named he will succeed Admiral William Veazie Pratt, who reached retirement age March 1. President Roosevelt wants Admiral Pratt to stand by until final disposition of the Geneva Disarmament Conference.

Meantime, Admiral Standley will be transferred from the command of the cruiser division of the Scouting Force, normally based on the Atlantic Coast but for the past year lingering in the Pacific, to command the Battle Force. Like famed Captain Reece, R. N. of the Bab Ballads, Admiral Standley says he pays more attention to personnel than to technical affairs. ''I am interested in everything that concerns my officers and men."

Born at Ukiah, Calif, in the northern redwood country, William Standley was the son of a sheriff-rancher. In 1890 he read an advertisement for competitive examinations to Annapolis. He frankly admits that he took the tests "just for an excuse to go to Santa Rosa," was surprised when he won the appointment. At the Naval Academy he played baseball, football. Graduated in 1895, he was assigned to the Asiatic Fleet. During the Philippine insurrection he distinguished himself by going ashore in the dead of night, wading through a swamp and making a sketch from a tree of an enemy camp. After Manila he spent some time in Central America "watching revolutions. ' During the War he trained officers at Annapolis. Admiral Standley has had plenty of experience for his new job in handling for two years the Navy's new instruments, its Treaty Cruisers. He is also a gunnery expert. Of medium height, grey-haired Admiral Standley is regarded as "swell" by the elevator boy and telephone operator of his Long Beach, Calif, apartment house. His son & namesake is in charge of the torpedo school at the San Diego naval air station. One of his four daughters married a naval man. New commander of the U. S. Fleet will be Vice Admiral David Foote Sellers of Texas, who was President Theodore Roosevelt's naval aide, has fought and won medals all over the map. He will succeed Admiral Richard Henry Leigh, who becomes a member of the General Board. Rear Admiral Frank Brooks Upham is to be commander-in-chief of the Asiatic Fleet, replacing Admiral Montgomery Meigs Taylor. Rear Admiral Frank Hardeman Brumby, commander of battleship division No. 1 of the Battle Force, succeeds Vice Admiral Frank Hodges Clark as commander of the Scouting Force.

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