He remained Laning's aide for the first two years of the admiral's next assignment as President of the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, then had duty as assistant gunnery officer aboard the battleship Nevada from June 1932 – May 1933.

In the weeks following the attack, Holloway was one of three duty officers selected to stand the night watch at the Navy Department, alternating four-hour shifts with Captain Cato D. Glover Jr. and Commander Forrest P. Sherman.

Promoted to captain in June, in November he led Desron 10 in screening the landings at Casablanca during the opening stages of Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa.

Arriving at Bermuda on 13 April aboard the destroyer tender Hamul, Holloway quickly established an efficient arena for drilling untrained crews in operations at sea.

When newly commissioned ships arrived at Bermuda, their officers and men debarked for training aboard Hamul and ashore while their vessels underwent inspection and repair by task force staff.

[8] For this success, Holloway was awarded the Legion of Merit, whose citation commended his having "built up an efficient organization, turning over to the Fleet competent seagoing vessels and thoroughly indoctrinated personnel.

"[2][9][10] Holloway operated his battleship with characteristic flair, recalled Rear Admiral Ralph Kirk James, who had been the maintenance officer responsible for repair work on damaged ships at Manus when Iowa arrived at that base to fix shafting problems on 25 December 1944.

Holloway immediately conducted a quick inspection tour of West Coast demobilization centers and concluded that the biggest problem was understaffing at the receiving facilities, which lacked the personnel to process the paperwork for the flood of returning servicemen.

In return for a three-year service commitment,[clarification needed] The federal government paid for officer candidates to obtain undergraduate degrees at accredited institutions, commissioning them upon graduation into the Naval Reserve.

Finally, with only two months before colleges were scheduled to begin their autumn classes, Holloway made a pilgrimage to the Georgia farm of committee chairman Carl Vinson, and the bill was placed on the House Calendar the following week.

[5][16] During its early years, critics complained that the Holloway Plan was a waste of taxpayer money because many reservists enrolled in the program only for the free college education, and quit the Navy after serving the minimum three-year commitment.

[19] Forty years later, Holloway's son was responsible for interviewing the eminent lawyers, businessmen, and government officials who applied for membership in the exclusive Metropolitan Club of the City of Washington between 1988 and 1992.

[3][21] He also procured modern equipment for the ordnance, gunnery, and marine engineering departments and instituted annual faculty symposia to "explore and confirm methods employed in both education and training.

[2] To compensate for the increased academic expectations, Holloway loosened the regulations restricting midshipman activities, allowing first classmen to own cars, go on leave every other weekend, store civilian clothing in dormitory rooms, and stay up until 11:00 PM every night.

[21][23] The first class was also delegated greater responsibility for student governance, and attempted to purge "flagrant violations of mature personal dignity" from midshipman hazing rituals, with mixed success.

[22] Despite his energetic reforms and personal popularity among the midshipmen, Holloway's three-year tour as superintendent ultimately was too brief to reverse the Naval Academy's entrenched cultural bias against academic achievement.

[25] Holloway also addressed the dismal living conditions of the enlisted men based at the Academy by upgrading their quarters from trailer parks to a village of Wherry housing units on the north shore of the Severn River.

"It was deemed wiser that the Naval Academy at Annapolis, with its history and traditions, be the single institution representing...the ultimate in personal and professional standards, and a principal binding force...in the Navy as a whole.

Chaired by University of Colorado president Robert Stearns, the board was initially inclined to recommend that officer candidates from all services study the same core academic curriculum at a single unified academy, as favored by the new Secretary of Defense, Louis Johnson, with Annapolis and West Point being reduced to specialized training campuses.

"[31] After completing his tour as superintendent in 1950, Holloway served 30 months as Commander, Battleship-Cruiser Force, Atlantic (COMBATCRULANT) before being promoted to vice admiral on February 2, 1953, and appointed chief of the Bureau of Naval Personnel (BuPers).

Holloway, who happened to be serving on a Selection Board in Washington at the time, promptly met with Chief of Naval Operations Arleigh A. Burke, who warned that a deployment order was imminent but that commitments in East Asia precluded any reinforcements from the Seventh Fleet.

He immediately flew back to his London headquarters, where he stopped just long enough to assemble his staff and activate Operation Bluebat, a preplanned scenario for suppressing a coup d'état in Lebanon, before flying on to Beirut.

Soft drink vendors and ice cream carts appeared playing nickelodeon music while small boys swam out to the landing craft and offered to help the Marines carry their equipment.

"[3] Once the column entered the city, Chehab departed and Holloway "assumed personal tactical command," directing individual units to their respective billeting areas in the city—"my first and last experience in field officer grade with land forces.

"[55] Holloway inadvertently created one of these problems himself when he ordered Major General David W. Gray to establish an Army base in a large olive grove just east of the airport.

[57] Holloway wryly observed that when his forces finally departed, they left behind a constitutionally elected president, a united army, peace in the area, and "a few legal beagles to pay for damage to the olive groves.

[62] Holloway was a husky, round-faced man with blue eyes and brown hair who stood six feet tall, weighed 190 pounds, and spoke in a light southern drawl.

[2][9] He was nicknamed "Lord Jim", as much for his reputation as a strict disciplinarian as for the aristocratic affectations that Time dubbed "a suave, diplomatic air that sometimes spills over into pomposity": In civvies he sports a Malacca cane.

"[9] Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Henry observed, "When President Eisenhower announced that our leader of United States forces in the Middle East would be an officer named Adm. Holloway, there was a sort of 'Who dat?'

[73] The Admiral James L. Holloway Jr. Award is presented annually by the Navy League of the United States to the outstanding NROTC midshipman in the nation and consists of an engraved watch and a certificate.