Appalachian Figures
In the early twentieth century Lawrenceburg, county seat of Lawrence County, Tennessee, sat far from the sea. It was and remains a small Appalachian county seat on the Highland Rim, included today among the counties of Appalachia as defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission.
Yet from this inland town came one of the United States Navy’s notable World War I submarine skippers and a World War II flag officer who helped batter Japanese positions from Leyte Gulf to Okinawa and stood on the deck of USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Rear Admiral Ingram Cecil Sowell carried Lawrenceburg’s name into the Azores, to a vast training camp on an Idaho lake, to a key naval base in Bermuda, and aboard the battleships that guarded the approach to Japan.
His story connects a small Appalachian community to some of the biggest decisions of the twentieth century.
Lawrenceburg Roots
Ingram Cecil Sowell was born in Lawrenceburg on 2 January 1892, the son of lawyer and farmer Henry Bascome Sowell and Eustatia Goodloe. The Sowells descended from early settlers of Lawrence County and appear across local genealogical lists and cemetery surveys in both Maury and Lawrence Counties.
He grew up in a town that had only recently rebuilt from fire and war. Lawrence County histories remember his family as part of the professional and farming class that anchored the county’s civic life. As a boy he attended local public schools before moving east to Columbia, Tennessee, where he enrolled at Columbia Military Academy, a preparatory school that sent many young men into college and the service academies.
From Lawrenceburg he could not see the ocean, but the United States Naval Academy beckoned. In 1908 he won an appointment to Annapolis, trading the limestone hills of southern Middle Tennessee for the Severn River.
“Red” at Annapolis
The 1912 Lucky Bag, the Naval Academy yearbook, shows a young man in midshipman blues identified simply as “Ingram Cecil Sowell, Lawrenceburg, Tennessee,” nicknamed “Red.” The entry notes his work on the Lucky Bag staff and the Expert Rifleman badge that marked him out on the firing range.
Academy records and his later biography agree that he excelled at both marksmanship and athletics, qualifying as an expert with rifle and pistol and joining the wrestling and football squads. He earned his coveted football “N” and played quarterback for the 1910 Midshipmen.
On 26 November 1910 he stepped onto the field for the Army–Navy game, already a national spectacle. Newspapers across the country would soon pick up his name. The Los Angeles Herald, San Francisco Call, and New York Times all reported that Sowell suffered a broken rib and likely a punctured lung early in the game yet stayed at quarterback as Navy ground out a 3–0 victory over Army. Stories with headlines such as “Sowell is Game” and “Sowell Played with Broken Rib” cast him as the tough Tennessean who refused to come off the field.
Local memory in Lawrence County never forgot that episode. A century later, the Lawrence County History project would still describe him as the midshipman from Tennessee who led Navy to victory over Army while playing hurt.
Sowell graduated with the Naval Academy class of 1912, receiving his Bachelor of Science degree and a commission as an ensign on 6 June. The boy from inland Appalachia was now a young officer in a rapidly changing fleet.
Early Sea Duty and the Road to Submarines
Fresh from Annapolis, Ensign Sowell joined the armored cruiser California, later renamed San Diego, on the Pacific station. The ship cruised off Nicaragua and Mexico during the years of political turmoil that led to the Veracruz campaign. Navy registers from 1916 and 1917 list him progressing through the junior grades and switching from battleship and cruiser duty to the new world of submarines.
By early 1917 he was assigned to the submarine tender Fulton at New London, Connecticut, to complete submarine training. A few months later he took command of submarine L-2 operating along the Atlantic coast. When the United States entered the First World War, he moved with other young officers into the dangerous work of anti U-boat patrols.
Navy Cross in the Azores
In March 1918 Sowell received orders to the Azores to command the submarine K-2. From Ponta Delgada he and his crew patrolled Atlantic convoy lanes, guarding troop and supply ships and hunting German submarines.
The Navy later summarized his service in the citation for the Navy Cross, the sea service’s second highest decoration for valor. The Bureau of Naval Personnel’s Information Bulletin recorded that as commanding officer of K-2 he performed “important, exacting and hazardous duty” patrolling waters infested with enemy submarines, mines, and raiders, protecting convoys and vigorously prosecuting offensive and defensive actions through the war.
That citation, preserved today through the Military Times Hall of Valor database, draws directly on wartime Navy documents. It placed his name among the official list of Navy Cross recipients for World War I and marked him permanently as a combat decorated submarine officer.
Tennessee’s statewide roll of World War I veterans lists “Sowell, Ingram Cecil” of Lawrenceburg as an officer in the United States Navy, tying that highly technical, far-off submarine war back to the courthouse town where he had grown up.
Between the Wars
Like many wartime officers, Sowell rode the roller coaster of demobilization. After the armistice he returned to the United States and helped fit out new submarines S-3 and S-49, taking the latter to sea as commanding officer during experimental work at New London.
Registers of commissioned and warrant officers show him shifting through a series of submarine, destroyer, and staff billets. He served at the Navy Department in Washington in the Gunnery Exercises and Engineering Competition Office, then took command of destroyers Henshaw and Wasmuth with the Pacific Fleet as the Navy experimented with new tactics and technology.
In the 1930s he alternated between sea duty and training assignments, reflecting the service’s growing emphasis on professional education. He completed the senior course at the Naval War College, worked with the Bureau of Construction and Repair, and served as executive officer of the heavy cruiser New Orleans before heading west again to oversee recruit training at Naval Station San Diego.
Across those years he was promoted from lieutenant to lieutenant commander and then to commander and captain. Navy registers track that progression line by line, moving “Sowell, Ingram C.” steadily upward in seniority while his home of record remained Lawrenceburg, Tennessee.
Cruiser Captain on the Eve of War
In January 1940 the Navy gave Captain Ingram C. Sowell command of the light cruiser USS Concord. Concord joined Cruiser Division Three of the Battle Force in the Pacific. When Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Concord shifted into a wartime pattern of escort duty, carrying troops and supplies to places such as Bora Bora and patrolling along the coasts of South America and in the Panama Canal area.
This work rarely drew headlines, yet it was essential. Cruiser and destroyer captains like Sowell shepherded convoys through seas where raiders and submarines could threaten Allied shipping. Those months at sea built the experience with large ships and complex task groups that he would soon carry into flag rank.
Farragut Naval Training Station: Building a Citizen Navy
In mid 1942 the Navy called Sowell from cruiser command to a different kind of battlefield. In July he assumed command of the newly established Farragut Naval Training Station on Lake Pend Oreille in northern Idaho.
Farragut was one of the giant inland boot camps built during World War II to keep recruits safe from coastal attack and to relieve overcrowded training centers at Great Lakes, San Diego, and Newport. A postwar history of the base and a detailed article in the Landing Craft Support Museum newsletter note that construction began in April 1942 and that the first camp was dedicated that August. They explicitly name “Captain I. C. Sowell, USN” as the first base commandant.
A widely reproduced wartime photograph shows President Franklin D. Roosevelt visiting Farragut. The caption identifies Idaho’s governor, the President’s physician Admiral Ross McIntire, and “Captain Ingram C. Sowell” among the officers accompanying Roosevelt, underscoring Sowell’s role in hosting the Commander-in-Chief at the remote training station.
Under his watch Farragut trained hundreds of thousands of recruits who went on to serve across the fleet. For a man from a rural Tennessee county, it must have been a striking sight: a pine covered plateau transformed into a temporary city of barracks, drill fields, rifle ranges, and classrooms where farm boys and factory workers learned to become sailors.
Bermuda and the Battle of the Atlantic
In March 1943 Sowell pinned on his star as a rear admiral and took a new post as Commandant of the Naval Operating Base at Bermuda.
The Hall of Valor transcript of his first Legion of Merit citation, drawn from the Bureau of Naval Personnel’s 1946 Information Bulletin, describes his duties. As Commandant of NOB Bermuda, Task Group Commander in the Atlantic Fleet, and Deputy to the Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet, he supervised the fleet base, coordinated escort, salvage, and rescue operations, and “contributed materially to the curtailment of the submarine menace.”
Contemporary issues of the Royal Gazette, preserved through the Bermuda National Library’s digital archives, reported on the American naval presence and referred to Rear Admiral Ingram C. Sowell as commandant of the base and a key figure in the island’s wartime defenses.
Professional circles also took note. The U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings carried “Professional Notes” mentioning him in connection with Bermuda operations. These scattered references, when read together with his Legion of Merit, show a flag officer trusted with an Atlantic crossroads where convoys assembled, aircraft ranged out on anti submarine patrols, and Allied officers worked out the daily problems of a global war.
Battleship Divisions and the Pacific Campaign
After more than a year in Bermuda, Sowell transferred to the Pacific theater. During the late war he commanded several battleship divisions as American forces pushed west across the Philippines and toward Japan.
An administrative annex to a Fifth Fleet operation plan shows him as Commander Battleship Division Four as early as September 1942, while later documents and war histories tie him to that division and to Battleship Divisions Five and Eight during the final campaigns.
The official “United States Pacific Fleet Organization, 1 May 1945” lists “ComBatDiv 4, R. Adm. I. C. Sowell” with West Virginia as his flagship and Colorado and Maryland under his command. The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships entry for West Virginia notes that on New Year’s Day 1945 Rear Admiral Ingram C. Sowell relieved another flag officer to take command of Battleship Division Four, which then sailed to Leyte Gulf and on into the Okinawa and Japan operations.
His second Legion of Merit, with Combat “V,” credits him as second in command of a fire support unit at Okinawa between 25 March and 20 April 1945. It praises his skill in directing his ship through dangerous waters to secure effective bombardment positions under heavy air attack and the threat of shore batteries.
His Silver Star citation, again preserved by Hall of Valor, describes him as Commander of a battleship division during the Okinawa campaign whose initiative and perseverance under severe enemy attack “contributed immeasurably to the success of the landing operations.”
In practical terms, this meant that a man who had once learned to read defenses on a football field now coordinated the guns of heavy ships that pounded beaches and inland positions before Marines and soldiers went ashore. It also meant that sailors from across the country, including Appalachia, served under a flag officer whose own accent and memories came from the hills of Tennessee.
Tokyo Bay
When representatives of the Japanese government came aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945 to sign the instruments of surrender, the great battleship’s decks were crowded with Allied admirals and generals. The Naval History and Heritage Command’s account of the ceremony and associated photographs include Rear Admiral Ingram C. Sowell among the officers present as part of the battleship division command structure.
Local historians in Lawrence County, working from those Navy sources and contemporary photographs, have highlighted Sowell’s presence in Tokyo Bay. In social media posts and talks they remind modern readers that a man whose name now graces an elementary school once stood in the front rank of the officers who witnessed the formal end of World War II.
Illness, Death, and Arlington
After the war the Navy reorganized. Sowell’s battleship division command stood down and he was ordered to Norfolk Navy Yard as Inspector General, Atlantic Fleet, serving under Admirals Jonas H. Ingram, Marc Mitscher, and William H. P. Blandy.
Early in 1947 he was diagnosed with cancer and sent first to the Brooklyn Naval Hospital, then to a hospital in Long Beach, California, as his condition worsened. He died there on 21 December 1947 while still on active duty, aged fifty five.
The New York Times obituary “Admiral Sowell, Led at Leyte, Dies” emphasized his Pacific service and described him as a leader in the Leyte operations who later became Inspector General of the Atlantic Fleet. The Tennessean reported the news under the heading “I. C. Sowell Dies on Coast,” noting that friends and relatives in Lawrenceburg had been notified of the death of their hometown admiral.
He was buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. His grave marker, photographed and transcribed by Find a Grave and other compilations, records “RADM Ingram Cecil Sowell” with his rank and dates of birth and death and lies among the quiet rows of white marble where many of his fellow flag officers also rest.
Even the basic facts of his birth have become a small archival puzzle. Most contemporary naval sources and the Naval Academy biography give his birth as 2 January 1892. Some later compilations, including Tennessee World War I lists and the Veterans Legacy Memorial entry, give 3 August 1889. The earlier academy records and his age of fifty five at death both fit the 1892 date, yet genealogists and local historians still note the discrepancy in their footnotes.
Remembering an Admiral in Lawrenceburg
For Lawrence County Sowell’s service did not end with his burial in Virginia. In the years after the war the county invested in new memorials and schools that used his name to anchor local memory.
A state and local historical marker complex in downtown Lawrenceburg honors war dead from multiple conflicts. The “Lawrence County War Memorials” arrangement includes monuments for the War of 1812, the Civil War, later wars, and a separate honor roll of casualties and distinguished servicemen. Contemporary descriptions and photographs used by local researchers note Ingram C. Sowell among those recognized.
In 1952 Lawrence County built a new elementary school on Seventh Street in Lawrenceburg and named it Ingram Sowell School in his honor. A brief note in the Lawrence County Heritage journal records simply that “Ingram Sowell School – located on 7th Street in Lawrenceburg – built in 1952.” Today Ingram Sowell Elementary School still stands at 510 Seventh Street, part of the Lawrence County School System, with modern school directories and the district website listing its address and name.
Local history pages and social media projects have shared photographs and stories that connect the living school to the man. They point out that the admiral who once commanded battleships at Okinawa and stood on Missouri’s deck now lends his name to a neighborhood school where Lawrenceburg children learn to read and write.
These same local sources add smaller touches to his story. One post notes that he had played football at Columbia Military Academy before Annapolis and that he later helped coach football in Lawrence County, linking his lifelong love of the game back to his home county’s own teams.
An Appalachian Life at Sea
Ingram C. Sowell’s life stretches from a rural courthouse town in Appalachian Tennessee to the submarine patrol lanes of the First World War, to an Idaho boot camp city, to anti submarine headquarters in Bermuda, to the battle lines off Leyte Gulf and Okinawa, and finally to the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay.
Primary sources scattered across yearbooks, Navy registers, wartime orders of battle, decoration citations, newspapers, and cemetery records confirm the bare facts of that journey. The 1912 Lucky Bag fixes him as “Ingram Cecil Sowell, Lawrenceburg, Tennessee,” nicknamed “Red.” Registers of commissioned officers trace his promotions and ship assignments. Decoration citations recorded in 1946 and 1947 explain why the Navy thought he deserved the Navy Cross, two Legions of Merit, and the Silver Star. Newspapers from 1910 to 1947 capture how the public saw him, from the football quarterback who “played with a broken rib” during the Army–Navy game to the admiral whose death notice reminded readers that he had “led at Leyte.”
For Appalachian history his career shows how deeply the world wars reached into mountain and upland communities. Lawrence County lies far from any harbor, yet a Lawrenceburg boy became a submariner in the North Atlantic, commanded a massive inland naval training center, oversaw a strategic island base in the Battle of the Atlantic, and helped direct battleships that smashed Japanese coastal defenses.
Today children in Lawrenceburg walk into a school bearing his name without always knowing that their mascot’s namesake once faced U-boats in the fog of the Azores and kamikazes in the skies over Okinawa. Recovering his story and tying it back to Lawrence County reminds us that global events turn on the lives of people whose roots run through small-town streets and Appalachian hills.
Selected Sources & Further Reading
Lucky Bag, United States Naval Academy, 1912. Entry for “Ingram Cecil Sowell, Lawrenceburg, Tennessee,” noting his nickname “Red,” Lucky Bag staff service, and Expert Rifleman qualification. Wikimedia Commons
Register of Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps, various years between 1916 and 1936, documenting Ingram C. Sowell’s ranks, seniority, and ship and station assignments. Facebook+2CEM+2
Bureau of Naval Personnel Information Bulletins, 1946–1947, as transcribed in Military Times Hall of Valor, containing full citations for Sowell’s Navy Cross, two Legions of Merit, and Silver Star. Hall of Valor
“United States Pacific Fleet Organization, 1 May 1945,” Naval History and Heritage Command, listing “R. Adm. I. C. Sowell” as Commander, Battleship Division Four with West Virginia, Colorado, and Maryland. Naval History and Heritage Command+1
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, entry for USS West Virginia (BB-48), describing Rear Admiral Ingram C. Sowell’s assumption of command of Battleship Division Four and the ship’s wartime operations in 1945. Naval History and Heritage Command
Landing Craft Support Museum Newsletter, October issue, “Farragut, Idaho: Where Fightin’ Blue Jackets Were Made,” noting Captain I. C. Sowell as first commandant of Farragut Naval Training Station. lcsmuseum.org
Royal Gazette (Bermuda) wartime articles and U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings “Professional Notes,” June 1944, recognizing Rear Admiral Sowell as Commandant of Naval Operating Base Bermuda and discussing his role in Atlantic operations. BNL CONTENTdm+1
“Admiral Sowell, Led at Leyte, Dies,” New York Times, 23 December 1947, and “I. C. Sowell Dies on Coast,” The Tennessean, 23 December 1947, obituaries highlighting his Pacific war service and reporting his death from cancer while Inspector General, Atlantic Fleet. Newspapers.com
Veterans Legacy Memorial entry “INGRAM C SOWELL,” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and Find a Grave memorial for “RADM Ingram Cecil Sowell (1892–1947),” providing burial information at Arlington National Cemetery and linking him to Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. CEM+1
Lawrence County Heritage journal note “Ingram Sowell School – located on 7th Street in Lawrenceburg – built in 1952” and Ingram Sowell Elementary School’s modern website listing the school at 510 Seventh Street, Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. Lorette Hotel+2LawCo TN Schools+2