Thomas Washington (6 June 1865 – 15 December 1954) was an admiral in the United States Navy during World War I. Early life and career Thomas Washington and his brother Richard were twin of Virginia and her farmer husband R.A. Washington, both born at Goldsboro, North Carolina. On May 17, 1883, Thomas Washington accepted an appointment to the United States Naval Academy. He traveled to Annapolis, Maryland, and graduated on 10 June 1887. After the required two years of sea duty during which he served on the European Station in the sloops and , he was commissioned ensign in 1889. Over the ensuing three years, he briefly served aboard the United States Coast Survey ship Endeavor, followed by a tour in the gunboat to the Far East. He was assigned to the office of the Navy's Judge Advocate General in 1892. Subsequently, after duty on several trial boards for general courts martial at the Norfolk and Washington Navy Yards, he was assigned to a succession of ships—, and —before joining the battleship in early 1898. He was on this ship when she helped to defeat the Spanish Fleet under Admiral Cervera on 3 July 1898 in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba. His younger brother and naval cadet, Pope Washington, was one of the survivors of the explosion of the Maine. After a second tour of duty ashore in the office of the Judge Advocate General, Washington served on the General Board. Ordered thence to the Asiatic Station, he joined the staff of Rear Admiral Robley D. "Fighting Bob" Evans, the Commander-in-Chief, Asiatic Fleet, on 29 October 1902. Quartered on the battleship , the Asiatic Fleet's flagship, he remained on Evans' staff until detached on 1 June 1904. Special duty at the Bureau of Navigation followed his return from the Orient and preceded his assuming command of dispatch boat , the vessel which was then serving as the Secretary of the Navy's yacht. Washington next put in another tour with the Bureau of Navigation for duty before returning to sea in 1912 to command, in turn, the gunboat and cruisers and over the next two years. World War I On 20 April 1914, Washington—by then a captain—assumed the duties of Hydrographer of the Navy. World War I broke out in Europe less than four months after Washington assumed the Hydrographer's duties, depriving the United States of its external sources of