John G. Crommelin
Rear Admiral John Geraerdt Crommelin, Jr. (October 2, 1902 – November 2, 1996) was a prominent United States Navy officer and later a frequent segregationist political candidate.
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Born in Montgomery, Alabama as eldest of five brothers, he graduated an United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland in 1923. Previously he grew up in Montgomery and in Elmore County, Alabama.
He saw combat at the Pacific during World War II. All of his brothers also graduated from the US Naval Academy and two of them were killed in action during WWII.
Crommelin earned a reputation of courageous and skillful naval aviator and nickname "bomb-run John". He served as an executive officer as well as air officer aboard the Enterprise and was chief of staff aboard the carrier Liscombe Bay when it was sunk in the Makin Island campaign off the Gilbert Islands.
In 1949 he served at Navy headquarters in The Pentagon in rank of captain. He became there a vocal critic of navy politics, despite being in active service. Captain Crommelin publicly complained that the Defense Department was scuttling naval air power and showing improper favor to the Air Force, and that "a Prussian General Staff system of the type employed by Hitler" was being imposed on the armed forces under unification.
Crommelin was publicly reprimanded by Admiral Forrest P. Sherman, then Chief of Naval Operations, for making public confidential Navy letters linking top admirals to active opposition against unification.
In result, he was transferred to San Francisco, California. After he continued his criticism in the face of orders to keep silent, he was ordered by Admiral Sherman to be furloughed at half pay, beginning early in 1950.
His activity and views became publicly well-known. In example in 1950 The New York Times's military affairs expert Hanson W. Baldwin wrote that Captain Crommelin was a "stormy petrel who wouldn't shut up."
Crommelin retired from active duty with the rank of Rear Admiral in May 1950, after 30 years. He went to operate a part of his family plantation, named Harrogate Springs, in Elmore County, raising a variety of crops.
Political activity
Crommelin was strong supporter of Senator Joe McCarthy; he ran for various public offices while in retirement.
At this time he was known for segregationist, white nationalist and Jew-wise public views. A self-styled "white man's candidate", he claimed that Jews are the real enemy of "white Christian Alabamians", asserting that they controlled the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In the Summer of 1958 two men who would later become leaders in the American Nazi Party, George Lincoln Rockwell and Matt Koehl, worked on his Alabama gubernatorial campaign.
Alongside his Senatorial and Gubernatorial bids in Alabama, he was nominated for Vice President by the National States' Rights Party (not to be confused with the Dixiecrats), as the running mate of Governor of Arkansas Orval E. Faubus.
During the United States presidential election of 1968 he ran in Democratic the New Hampshire primary, winning only 186 votes (0.34%) and finishing fifth.
He married Lillian E. Landis in 1930 (she died in 1991). They had two daughters and one son.
Pamphlet
- The Hidden Force 7 pages
Quotes
- The biggest lie of all is the claim that the modern Jew is a white man.[1]
Electoral history
Alabama United States Senate election, 1950
- J. Lister Hill (D) (inc.) - 125,534 (76.54%)
- John G. Crommelin (Independent) - 38,477 (23.46%)
Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate from Alabama, 1956
- J. Lister Hill (inc.) - 247,519 (68.20%)
- John G. Crommelin - 115,440 (31.81%)
Alabama gubernatorial election, 1958 (Democratic primary)
- John Malcolm Patterson - 196,859 (31.82%)
- George Wallace - 162,435 (26.26%)
- Jimmy Faulkner - 91,512 (14.79%)
- A.W. Todd - 59,240 (9.58%)
- Laurie Battle - 38,955 (6.30%)
- George Hawkins - 24,332 (3.93%)
- C.C. Owen - 15,270 (2.47%)
- Karl Harrison - 12,488 (2.02%)
- Billy Walker - 7,963 (1.29%)
- W.E. Dodd - 4,753 (0.77%)
- John G. Crommelin - 2,245 (0.36%)
- Shearen Elebash - 1,177 (0.19%)
- James Gulatte - 798 (0.13%)
- Shorty Price - 655 (0.11%)
Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate from Alabama, 1960
- John Sparkman (inc.) - 335,722 (86.68%)
- John G. Crommelin - 51,571 (13.32%)
United States presidential election, 1960
- John F. Kennedy/Lyndon B. Johnson (D) - 34,220,984 (49.9%) and 303 electoral votes (22 states carried)
- Richard Nixon/Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (R) - 34,108,157 (49.5%) and 219 electoral votes (26 states carried)
- Harry F. Byrd/Strom Thurmond/Barry Goldwater (Independents) - 15 electoral votes (Mississippi and Alabama unpledged and faithless electors from Oklahoma)
- Unpledged electors (D) - 286,359 (0.4%) and 0 electoral votes
- Eric Hass/Georgia Cozzini (Socialist Labor) - 47,522 (0.07%)
- Rutherford L. Decker/Earle Harold Munn (Prohibition Party) - 46,203 (0.07%)
- Orval E. Faubus/John G. Crommelin (National States' Rights Party) - 44,984 (0.07%)
Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate from Alabama, 1962
- J. Lister Hill (inc.) - 363,613 (73.71%)
- Donald G. Hallmark - 72,855 (14.77%)
- John G. Crommelin - 56,822 (11.52%)
Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate from Alabama, 1966
- John Sparkman (inc.) - 378,295 (56.98%)
- Frank E. Dixon - 133,139 (20.05%)
- John G. Crommelin - 114,622 (17.26%)
- Margaret E. Stewart - 37,889 (5.71%)
United States presidential election, 1968 (Democratic primaries)
- Eugene McCarthy - 2,914,933 (38.73%)
- Robert Kennedy - 2,305,148 (30.63%)
- Stephen M. Young - 549,140 (7.30%)
- Lyndon B. Johnson - 383,590 (5.10%)
- Thomas C. Lynch - 380,286 (5.05%)
- Roger D. Branigin - 238,700 (3.17%)
- George Smathers - 236,242 (3.14%)
- Hubert Humphrey - 166,463 (2.21%)
- Unpledged - 161,143 (2.14%)
- Scott Kelly - 128,899 (1.71%)
- George Wallace - 34,489 (0.46%)
- Richard Nixon (write-in) - 13,610 (0.18%)
- Ronald Reagan (write-in) - 5,309 (0.07%)
- Ted Kennedy - 4,052 (0.05%)
- Paul C. Fisher - 506 (0.01%)
- John G. Crommelin - 186 (0.00%)
Notes
- ↑ The Segregationists, by James Graham Cook, page 164
