Charles Emery Rosendahl (May 15, 1892 – May 17, 1977) was a highly decorated vice admiral in the United States Navy, and an advocate of lighter-than-air flight.
Biography
Early career
Rosendahl was born in Chicago, Illinois, although his family subsequently relocated to Kansas and Texas and, in 1910, he was appointed to the Naval Academy from the latter state and was later commissioned in the rank of ensign in June 1914, upon graduation from the academy. He was then ordered to join the armored cruiser off Mexico during the Veracruz crisis. After West Virginia was decommissioned he served briefly on the battleship and the protected cruiser , before reporting for duty aboard the protected cruiser on May 14, 1915. On September 15, 1916, he returned to the recommissioned West Virginia, which was subsequently renamed the Huntington. On June 19, 1917, he received promotion to lieutenant (junior grade), and to full lieutenant on August 31, 1918, having served aboard the Huntington escorting convoys of troops and supplies to Europe during World War I.
From June 6, 1918,
On August 6, 1938, he was relieved of command of NAS Lakehurst, and on August 31, he reported to Pearl Harbor On May 15, he returned to NAS Lakehurst and assumed duty as the Chief of Naval Airship Training Command, receiving promotion to rear admiral on May 26, 1943. These include notes for an unpublished study of the attack on Pearl Harbor written with the assistance of Vice Admiral Ryūnosuke Kusaka, who Rosendahl had first met and befriended on the Graf Zeppelin circumnavigation in 1929.