O N THE LAST DAY OF JULY 1940, Lieutenant Commander and Mrs. Arleigh Albert Burke departed from Honolulu on the liner Matsonia for San Francisco. Burke had relinquished his first command, the destroyer USS Mugford, on the day before, and was now on his way to report for duty at the Naval Gun Factory in Washington, D.C. As the big liner cleared the harbor, she was met by the Mugford. Coming close aboard the Matsonia's starboard side, the destroyer's crew passed over flowered leis for the Burkes. Then, after hoisting the flag signal for Good Luck, the Mugford circled the liner at high speed and headed back to antisubmarine patrol off Pearl Harbor. The destroyer's crew was paying tribute to their former captain, who, in thirteen months in command, had led them to win the Destroyer Gunnery Trophy for 1939-1940 and coveted Navy E's (for Efficiency) in fire control and engineering. Arleigh Burke, in 1940, was a thirty-eight-year-old professional naval officer who had spent over half his life in the United States Navy.' Graduating from the Naval Academy in 1923, he had served