Samuel Murray Robinson

Admiral Samuel Murray Robinson (August 13, 1882 – November 11, 1972) was a United States Navy four-star admiral who directed Navy procurement during World War II.

Early career Born in Eulogy, Texas, Robinson attended primary school in Walnut Springs, Texas, high school in Dublin, Texas, and college at Fort Worth University before entering the U.S. Naval Academy in 1899. Graduating in 1903, he saw service in the Asiatic Station before making a cruise from Honolulu, Hawaii to Panama aboard the Paul Jones, the first long voyage undertaken by a destroyer.

From 1907 to 1909, he circumnavigated the globe with the Great White Fleet aboard the battleship Vermont. During the round-the-world cruise, he met his future wife on a port call in San Francisco, California, and they were married on March 9, 1909, two weeks after Vermont returned with the fleet to Hampton Roads, Virginia.

USS Jupiter (AC-3), on trials near Mare Island Navy Yard, October 16, 1913.

Electric drive pioneer Robinson was credited with pioneering electric drive propulsion in the U.S. Navy, beginning with his tour as executive officer and chief engineer of the newly built collier Jupiter. Jupiter was the first major ship equipped with turboelectric drive by the U.S. Navy, as part of a controlled experiment to evaluate the relative merits of competing propulsion mechanisms.

In August 1913, Jupiter'''s trials almost ended before they began. While underway off the coaling station in Tiburon, California in preparation for its shakedown cruise, Jupiter took evasive action to avoid an accidental collision with a passing submarine. During the sudden maneuver, a fuse on the main electrical panel blew, shutting down every piece of machinery on the ship, including its steering. With only four minutes before the ship would run aground, Robinson restored power; Jupiter got underway with 30 seconds to spare.

Robinson remained with Jupiter for its shakedown cruise, during which the collier traveled from the West Coast to the Atlantic and became the first naval vessel to transit the Panama Canal. Based on his report, turboelectric drive was selected for installation in the new battleship California, and Robinson was assigned to superintend the construction of California's electric equipment at the Mare Island Navy Yard.

He was relieved as chief of BuEng on May 29, 1935 by Rear Admiral Harold G. Bowen, Sr. and became inspector of naval materiel at the General Electric Company in Schenectady, New York. He was senior member of the Navy Compensation Board in 1938. In September 1939 he was appointed for a second term as chief of BuEng and put in charge of the shipbuilding program as coordinator of shipbuilding.

By March 1942, the completion date for the two-ocean Navy program, originally projected for 1947, had already been pushed forward to 1945-46. Every major shipyard in the United States was either building or repairing some kind of Navy vessel. Many vessels would be completed more than a year ahead of the schedules specified by their original contracts, including aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and other light warships. By the end of Robinson's tenure, the Bureau of Ships was churning out ships faster than the other bureaus could outfit them with instrumentation and other essentials.

Robinson was promoted to full admiral on August 27, 1945, twelve days after the victory over Japan. He retired from the Navy in 1946 to serve as administrator of the Webb Institute of Naval Architecture in Glen Cove, New York until 1952. and they had two sons: James Burnham Robinson, a naval reservist in the Civil Engineer Corps who was captured at Wake Island in December 1941 and interned as a prisoner of war in Shanghai; and A Brief History of the Texas Navy'', an appraisal of the strategic value of the Texas Navy that was published by the Sons of the Republic of Texas in 1961 and mailed to every senior and junior high school in Texas, and to all universities and colleges, as a supplemental chapter in the teaching of Texas history. He recorded an oral history that is archived at the Columbia University Oral History Research Office.

He was presented the John Scott Award in 1942 for outstanding work in warship design and construction. The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers awarded him the 1942 David W. Taylor Medal for notable achievement in naval architecture. He was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1948 for his work in outfitting American-built ships for the Royal Navy, and for cooperating in other procurement matters.