Rear Admiral Walter L. McLean (1855 – March 21, 1930) was the

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commander of the

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from November 25, 1915, until February 4, 1918. Under his command, the Shipyard was the holding area for various German vessels which had put into port during

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, and stayed in a somewhat

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status—the United States had not entered the war and so could not commandeer the ships, but then neither could the ships be allowed to depart and resume attacks on

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shipping. The course of action was therefore to keep the foreign ships and their crews as "guests" of the United States for years.

Biography

He was born on July 30, 1855, in New York or New Jersey. During World War I, McLean was commander of the

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, and also commandant of the Navy Base at

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. According to the ''

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'', he was with Admiral

George Dewey George Dewey (December 26, 1837January 16, 1917) was Admiral of the Navy, the only person in United States history to have attained that rank. He is best known for his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish–American War, with ...

at the

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in 1898, during the

Spanish–American War , partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence , image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg , image_size = 300px , caption = (clock ...

. He was named commander of the

from November 25, 1915. In 1915 he detained , a German

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which had had guns installed and been turned into a

commerce raider Commerce raiding (french: guerre de course, "war of the chase"; german: Handelskrieg, "trade war") is a form of naval warfare used to destroy or disrupt logistics of the enemy on the open sea by attacking its merchant shipping, rather than enga ...

for the

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. When the United States entered the war in 1917, the ship was renamed as USS ''Von Steuben'' and turned into a

troop transport A troopship (also troop ship or troop transport or trooper) is a ship used to carry soldiers, either in peacetime or wartime. Troopships were often drafted from commercial shipping fleets, and were unable land troops directly on shore, typicall ...

. He resigned as commander of the

on February 4, 1918. McLean maintained friendly relations with some of the detained crew. When the second-in-command of ''Kronprinz Wilhelm'', Alfred Niezychowski, got married in 1927, McLean was best man. McLean also encouraged Niezychowski to write a book about the journey, and McLean wrote his own forward to it when it was published in 1928 as ''The Cruise of the Kronprinz Wilhelm.'' He died on March 21, 1930, of a stroke at the Navy Hospital in

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, at the age of 75.

Biography

References

Further reading