Rear admiral
naval commissioned officer rank above that of a commodore and captain
Rear admiral is a flag officer rank used by English-speaking navies. In most European navies, the equivalent rank is called counter admiral.
Rear admiral is usually immediately senior to commodore and immediately below vice admiral. It is usually equivalent to the rank of major general in armies. In the U.S. Navy and some other navies, there are two rear admiral ranks.
The term originated in the days of naval sailing squadrons and can trace its origins to the British Royal Navy. Each naval squadron was assigned an admiral as its head, who commanded from the centre vessel and directed the squadron's activities. The admiral would in turn be assisted by a vice admiral, who commanded the lead ships that bore the brunt of a battle. In the rear of the squadron, a third admiral commanded the remaining ships and, as this section was considered to be in the least danger, the admiral in command of it was typically the most junior. This has continued into the modern age, with rear admiral the most junior admiralty of many navies.
The public source identifies “Rear admiral” as naval commissioned officer rank above that of a commodore and captain. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Rear, admiral and naval.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q156945. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rear admiral” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.