also obsolete. He participated in sports, particularly in rowing, earning a seat in the Academy's eight-oar racing shell. He graduated on 5 June 1908, ranked 136th in his class of 201. One of his classmates was Richmond K. Turner. Early career Kinkaid's first posting was to San Francisco where he joined the crew of the battleship , part of the Great White Fleet. During the next year, he circumnavigated the globe with the fleet, visiting New Zealand and Australia. The fleet returned to its home port of Norfolk, Virginia in February 1909. In 1910, Kinkaid took his examinations for the rank of ensign but failed navigation. While his classmates were promoted in June 1910, Kinkaid remained a midshipman, pending the result of a makeup examination in December 1910. In July, he developed pleurisy and was hospitalized in New York, New York, before being sent to Annapolis to recuperate. At the time, his father was in charge of the Naval Engineering Experiment Station there, which allowed Kinkaid to stay with his parents while studying for his navigation examination. In October, he was posted to the battleship whose skipper, Commander William Sims, an Annapolis classmate of his father's, encouraged Kinkaid's early interest in gunnery. Kinkaid passed his navigation examination on 7 December and was promoted to ensign on 14 February 1911, backdated to 6 June 1910. While still at Annapolis, Kinkaid met Helen Sherburne Ross (1892–1980), the daughter of a Philadelphia businessman. The two were married on 24 April 1911 in the Silver Chapel of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Philadelphia in a ceremony attended by a small number of guests. Their marriage produced no children. They enjoyed playing contract bridge and golf, and Helen was the women's golf champion for the District of Columbia in 1921 and 1922. In 1913, Kinkaid, now a lieutenant (junior grade), commenced a course in ordnance at the Naval Academy Postgraduate School. This consisted of four months of classroom instruction followed by tours with the leading naval ordnance manufacturers, and concluded with a tour of duty at the Indian Head Naval Proving Ground. Students had to commit to remain in the Navy for at least eight years. After completing the four months in the classroom at Annapolis, Kinkaid commenced a three-month assignment at Midvale Steel, but this was interrupted after two months by the United States occupation of Veracruz. Kinkaid was ordered to report to the