The majority of the following biography on Vice Admiral (VADM) Andrews is paraphrased from a lengthy article entitled
"Eastern Sea Frontier Chief is a Texan with a Big Naval Job," that ran in the July 18, 1942, edition of the Ft Worth Star-Telegram newspaper.


VADM Andrews was born in Galveston, Texas, the son of Adolphus Rutherford and Louise Caroline (Davis) Andrews. He lived a few childhood years in Weatherford, Texas, grew up in Dallas, and attended the University of Texas in Austin. He was called from there to take the entrance exam for the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis and was accepted. He graduated as a Naval Officer in 1901. He married Miss Berenice Platter of Denison, Texas, and the couple was blessed with two children, a son Adolphus Jr. and a daughter Frances W. Andrews.
During his long and illustrious career that spanned World Wars I and II, VADM Andrews was the Naval Aide to four Presidents, commanded ships ranging from a tugboat to battleships, and was the youngest Captain in the Navy at the end of World War I. He ended his military career as the Commandant of the Third Naval District and Eastern Sea Frontier. He retired from the Navy on 11 November 1943.
Left to mourn his passing and cherish his memory were his loving wife and children. He rests next to her. Many papers, newspaper clippings, and photos illustrating VADM Andrews' career were given to the Denison Public library, Denison, Texas, and are readily available for review.


Dallas Morning News
June 20, 1948

The three-starred flag of Vice-Admiral Adolphus Andrews, the Dallas man who ran the Navy's war against Nazi subs on the Atlantic Coast, was struck forever Saturday. He died in the U. S. Naval Hospital at Houston.
Death came after a long illness to the handsome, 69-year-old man who had been naval aide to three United States Presidents. When Adolphus Andrews entered Annapolis, he was the youngest midshipman in his class. At 38, he was the youngest captain in the Navy. He had held almost every high Navy post except Chief of Naval Operations.
Since retiring because of age in 1943, he had headed the Andrews Investment Company in Dallas and the Waples-Platter Company of Texas. He held a dozen other important business directorates.
When he retired, Adolphus Andrews had served the Navy for forty-eight years, although he hadn't aimed at a naval career in the first place. He wanted to go to Yale, but when he was graduated from Oak Cliff High School he was only 15, and his father decided he was too young to go East, so the boy went to the University of Texas in Austin. While there, he got a telegram from his father to come home and take a competitive exam for appointment to the naval academy.
"I didn't even know where Annapolis was," Andrews recalled later. He packed a set of books and intended to study for the examination on the train. After awhile, he became bored and decided to throw the whole thing over. He had a biography of Andrew Jackson with him, and spent the rest of the evening reading it. When he took the examination, he found that the first question was a detailed one about Andrew Jackson. Young Andrews got the appointment and finished Annapolis in 1901.
For a time, he served aboard the U.S.S. Dolphin, a yacht assigned to the Secretary of the Navy, and at the White House under President Theodore Roosevelt as junior naval aide. He asked and got in 1908 command of a river gunboat, the U.S.S. Villalobos, on the China station where reputations were made or broken in those chaotic days.
By 1918, he was the youngest captain in the Navy and commanding officer of the battleship Massachusetts. By 1931, he was chief of staff of the Naval War College. By 1934, he was chief of staff of the United State's fleet. He became chief of the important Bureau of Navigation, now the Bureau of Naval Personnel, in 1935, and a vice-admiral and commander of the fleet scouting force, with seventeen heavy cruisers, thirty other ships, 200 flying boats, and 50,000 men under him, in 1938.
In the meantime, he had been naval aide to Prince Axel of Denmark during the latter's visit to the United States in World War I days. He was commander of the Presidential yacht, the Mayflower, and senior naval aide to Presidents Harding and Coolidge. He represented the United States at the Geneva Preparatory Commission on the Limitation of Armaments in 1926 and 1927.
From 1929 to 1931, Andrews was commanding officer of the U.S.S. Texas, the battleship which now rests in the Houston ship channel.
When World War II came, Andrews was old for a combat command. He took charge, nevertheless, of the Eastern Sea Frontier with headquarters in New York and started to fight the German submarine fleet with "about three planes, some small craft, and a lot of fine but inexperienced men from Cornell."
He earned there the Distinguished Service Medal.
After he retired in 1943, he headed the manpower survey board of the Navy and was a member of the Pearl Harbor Court of Inquiry. In June 1945, he went to the Pacific and stayed for almost a year as Red Cross Commissioner.
At the time of his death, he was a director of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railway, the Texas Bank & Trust Company, the Kansas City Wholesale Grocery Company of Kansas City, Mo., and the Bird Shankle Corporation of San Antonio.
He was a member of the New York City University Club, the Dallas Downtown Club, the Fort Worth Club, the Alibi Club, and the Metropolitan Club and Chevy Chase Country Clubs of Washington, D.C.
He is survived by his wife, the former Berenice [sic] W. Platter of Denison; a daughter, Mrs. Frances A. Dillingham of Honolulu, T. H.; a son, Adolphus Andrews Jr. of Fort Worth; and three grandchildren.