William Edward Reynolds (11 January 1860 – 25 January 1944) served as the fifth Commandant of the United States Coast Guard, from 1919 to 1924.
During the early part of his military career, Reynolds spent much of his time aboard various vessels in the Revenue Cutter Service and its successor agency, the United States Coast Guard. He took an active interest in the education of officers as superintendent of the Revenue Cutter Service School of Instruction by increasing and modernizing the curriculum. The period after World War I when he served as Commandant was one of manpower shortages and personnel problems as well as questions about whether the Treasury Department or the Navy Department should control the Coast Guard. Reynolds was able to guide the service through the difficulties of control and actually increased the number of vessels and men serving under him.
Early life and career
Reynolds was born in Montgomery County, Maryland. He was in the second class graduated from the School of Instruction. As a member of the crew of USRC Corwin, in 1881, he participated in the search for the missing exploration steamer USS Jeannette along the northern coast of Siberia using a sled team. On 12 August 1881 he was a member of the expedition which claimed Wrangel Island for the United States while searching for Jeannette.
On 24 December 1884 Reynolds reported aboard the School of Instruction's training cutter, USRC Salmon P. Chase as one of the instructors at the school.
On 1 June 1885 Reynolds was promoted to second lieutenant. He was successful and Healy was convicted on all charges on 5 March 1896.
At the beginning of the Spanish–American War, Reynolds was serving as captain of the USRC Louis McLane in the North Atlantic Fleet under Navy Rear Admiral William T. Sampson. Based at Key West, Florida, McLane guarded the submarine telegraph cable that ran from Key West to Sanibel Island.
On 6 November 1902 Reynolds assumed the assignment of superintendent of the Revenue Cutter Service School of Instruction and the command of the training cutter USRC Chase. On 31 January 1903 Reynolds was promoted to captain. On 23 January 1909, as captain of USRC Seneca, he responded to the collision of White Star passenger liner SS Republic with the Italian liner SS Florida, 26 miles southeast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, assisting USRC Gresham with the rescue of passengers and crew of the Republic. On 9 July 1909 Reynolds was promoted to senior captain.|group=Note As Captain Commandant Worth G. Ross indicated that he was going to retire in 1911 because of ill health, speculation as to who would succeed him as Captain Commandant became a campaign by several senior officers in the Revenue Cutter Service. Although he didn't actively seek the position, Reynolds name was mentioned a possibility by other senior captains, but eventually the campaign by Senior Captain Ellsworth P. Bertholf would succeed.
When the United States entered World War I on 6 April 1917, Senior Captain Reynolds was commanding the Coast Guard's southern division at San Francisco. He was directed to report to the Commander, Twelfth Naval District for assignment where he was put in charge of harbor patrols for the district but also retained his old assignment. On 11 September 1917, he was reassigned as the district chief of staff, in addition to his former assignments. He remained as district chief of staff for the remainder of the war.
Commandant
As the most senior officer after the Captain Commandant of the Coast Guard, Reynolds had the strong recommendation of Bertholf to succeed him as Captain Commandant. Bertholf wanted to retire, but was hesitant to do so because the Navy wanted to retain the control over the Coast Guard that they had gained during the war. Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels actively sought control at committee hearings in Congress. Secretary of the Treasury Carter Glass finally met with President Woodrow Wilson who issued Executive Order 3160 on 28 August 1919 stating that "it is hereby directed that the Coast Guard shall on and after this date operate under the Treasury Department."
The Campbell bill
With a recommendation by Bertholf, Glass appointed Reynolds as Captain Commandant. Reynolds assumed command of the Coast Guard with the rank of commodore effective 2 October 1919.
As Commodore Commandant of the Coast Guard one of Reynolds first concerns was a renewed effort by the Navy to control the Coast Guard by congressional action and a bill was introduced by Pennsylvania Representative Guy Campbell to accomplish a transfer to the Navy. Many Coast Guard officers felt they had better pay and advancement opportunities if they were transferred to the Navy and they actively supported the legislation by drumming up support for it through shipping trade organizations. The legislation was ultimately defeated through the efforts of the recently retired Bertholf, who had many political connections and Glass, who had resigned his Treasury position to accept appointment as Senator from Virginia.
A shortage of officers occurred post war despite a law requiring the Coast Guard to adopt the Navy's rank structure. The problem was that temporary wartime officer promotions were to be rescinded in 1921 leaving many to be reduced in rank. Reynolds attempted to reduce the shortage of officers by asking the Navy to allow some of their new graduates from the Naval Academy to transfer to the Coast Guard. The Navy claimed they needed all of the graduates for their manning problems, so no transfers were made. Because of the shortage of personnel, six cutters of the Atlantic fleet had to be decommissioned in order to man the cutters assigned to the Bering Sea Patrol. While construction was suspended on cutters designed before the war due to a lack of yard capacity, Reynolds did manage to fund the construction of four new truly "multi-mission" large cutters. The , , , and were designed for use in law enforcement, ice patrol, search and rescue, derelict destruction and towing and used newly developed steam powered turbo-electric drives that were similar to the Navy's main drive engines used on battleships of the period, however they were more compact because of the limited engineering spaces on the smaller cutters. In addition to the large cutters, , a ocean-going tug was added to the fleet.
Prohibition
With the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the enabling law known as the Volstead Act, the enforcement of national prohibition after 16 January 1920 fell to the Treasury Department's Bureau of Internal Revenue. Treasury Secretary David F. Houston created a Prohibition Unit within the bureau, but he did not include the Coast Guard in the unit's makeup. Because the Coast Guard was not a part of the Prohibition Unit and Congress did not appropriate funds for the Coast Guard to use in prohibition enforcement, Reynolds did little to stop liquor importation before 1922. He suggested that if the Prohibition Unit wanted to pay for the crews and costs of operation of nine Coast Guard-operated submarine chasers, that the Coast Guard would then be interested in more enforcement of the prohibition laws. Congress thought the request was excessive, but did fund twenty destroyers and two minesweepers as well as 223 cabin cruisers, and 100 smaller motorboats with an additional 4,356 officers and men to operate the vessels. The destroyers and minesweepers were surplus World War I Navy vessels and Congress felt that the older vessels could be overhauled cheaper than new cutters. In addition, some of the officers to command the vessels were given temporary promotions, but without an increase in pay and allowances. He retired as Commandant of the Coast Guard on 11 January 1924, and was succeeded by Rear Admiral Frederick C. Billard, his former aide.
Retirement and death
The same law that promoted Reynolds to rear admiral in 1923 also allowed Coast Guard officers to retire with the rank and retired pay of the next higher grade if they had more than 40 years of service. Reynolds initially did not receive this tombstone promotion since the commandant already held the highest pay grade in the Coast Guard, which was equivalent to a Navy rear admiral (lower half) when Reynolds retired on January 11, 1924, upon reaching the statutory age limit of 64. The pay of the commandant was raised to that of a Navy rear admiral (upper half) in 1930, and when a 1936 law provided the retired pay of that grade for every former commandant except Reynolds, he petitioned for his tombstone promotion, which the Court of Claims eventually granted in December 1941, along with additional retired pay for the six years prior to his petition.
Reynolds died 25 January 1944.