recommended Kinkaid for command of a destroyer squadron. This was a seagoing command, although Kinkaid was somewhat senior for it. Good fitness reports as commander of Destroyer Squadron 8, based in Philadelphia, resulted in Kinkaid's promotion to rear admiral in August 1941, despite having no more than two years' worth of total command experience. He became the last of his class to be promoted to flag rank before the United States entered the war. No one ranking lower in the class was promoted to flag rank before retirement. Coral Sea and Midway Kinkaid was ordered to relieve Rear Admiral Frank J. Fletcher as commander of Cruiser Division 6, consisting of the heavy cruisers , and . This was part of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, based at Pearl Harbor. He did not reach his new command until after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which brought the U.S. into the war. When he reached Hawaii, Kinkaid stayed with his brother-in-law, the Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, who was married to Kinkaid's sister Dorothy. Kinkaid accompanied Fletcher as an observer during the attempt to relieve Wake Island, and did not formally assume command of the division until 29 December 1941. The traditional job of cruisers was scouting and screening, but with the loss of most of the battleships at Pearl Harbor these roles largely passed to the aircraft carriers, while the cruisers' main mission became defending the carriers against air attack. Kinkaid's cruisers formed part of Rear Admiral Aubrey W. Fitch's Task Force 11, which was built around the carrier . Task Force 11 rendezvoused with Fletcher's Task Force 17, built around the carrier , on 1 May 1942. Kinkaid then became commander of the Task Group 17.2, the screening cruisers and destroyers of both carriers. Carrier warfare was in its infancy, and at this stage American carriers neither embarked adequate numbers of fighters, nor skillfully employed what they had. When Task Force 17 was attacked three days later in the Battle of the Coral Sea, the burden of defending the Task Force fell on Kinkaid's gunners. Their task was complicated by the radical maneuvering of the carriers under attack, which made it impossible for the screen to keep station. Despite the gunners' best efforts, both carriers were hit, and Lexington caught fire and sank. For his part in the battle, Kinkaid was awarded the Navy Distinguished Service