Korean War John Madison Hoskins (October 22, 1898 – March 30, 1964) was an officer and aviator in the United States Navy who retired as Vice Admiral.

While he was commanding officer of Valley Forge, the carrier group and her aircraft were twice deployed to the war zone to repel advances by the enemy and made major air cover contributions to the successful Inchon landings.

[5][6] At the end of World War I, Hoskins was serving aboard battleship USS Wisconsin (BB-9), the academy training ship, cruising domestic waters as part of the wartime Atlantic Fleet.

Hoskins served aboard Memphis during its June 1927 cruise from Cherbourg to Washington, D.C. transporting Charles Lindbergh and his plane the Spirit of St. Louis after his solo successful crossing of the Atlantic Ocean.

[2][7] Hoskins returned to NAS Pensacola in 1928 to serve as instructor, then after a year was assigned to command the Naval Reserve Aviation Base at Great Lakes, Illinois.

[2] On July 2, 1937, aviator Amelia Earhart failed to arrive at Howland Island as scheduled during her second attempt to be the first woman to circumnavigate the globe by air.

When war was declared against Japan and Germany on December 8, 1941, Ranger continued transporting needed P-40 fighters to Africa; in June 1942, Hoskins assumed the duties of executive officer.

Operation Torch, the occupation of North Africa, utilized Ranger as a platform to launch dive bombers, torpedo planes and fighters for air cover.

[2] According to a congratulatory statement made by their commanding officer, on the first day of action, November 8, Ranger launched 203 flights against Vichy and other enemy targets on land, sea, and air.

In 1943, "Uncle John" was assigned to Washington, D.C. and was later Chief of Staff to the commander of Fleet Air, Quonset Point, Rhode Island, where both American and British pilots were trained in carrier flight techniques and tactics.

[14] At roughly 10:00 on October 24, Princeton was attacked by a Yokosuka D4Y "Judy" which dropped its single bomb directly through the flight and hangar decks, igniting gasoline stores, disabling fire suppression systems and causing secondary explosions.

[7] Fitted with a prosthetic foot, Hoskins started a vigorous exercise program, including paying visits to the shipyard to oversee construction of the new Essex-class carrier.

Air Group 81, formerly from Princeton, asked Walt Disney to design a mascot patch, "a saber-slinging pirate with an aircraft carrier under one arm and a peg leg firing ammunition like a machine gun", and were for a time known as Peg-Leg Petes.

[18] Hoskins quickly moved his force to Naval Station Subic Bay for fueling and resupply and by July 3 was launching the first carrier-based air strikes of the conflict.

[18] By mid-August, Valley Forge's air groups were averaging 80 sorties each day, using every minute of sunlight to hit "everything from oil refineries to horse carts.

"[6] After helping to protect the Pusan perimeter, Hoskins and his carrier division were instrumental in the success of Douglas MacArthur's end-around amphibious assault on Inchon a month later.

[18] Valley Forge was slated for overhaul and was heading towards its base in San Diego when Hoskins was notified of the Second Phase Offensive launched in the last week of November by the Chinese Army in support of the North Korean effort.

[24] In 1955 Republic Pictures released The Eternal Sea, a biopic taken from Hoskins's life and written by Allen Rivkin after a story by William Wister Haines.

He later served for five years as director of the Office of Declassification Policy in the Department of Defense, managing the activity of declassifying formerly classified materials for public release.