Rear Admiral

Rear Admiral was a naval line rank, usually the lowest level of Admiral in a fleet barring the simple address of Admiral, and the counterpart to the Army rank of Major General. The next rank up in seniority was Vice Admiral, while the rank below was Commodore. There is also some evidence for a semi-formal subordinate grade of Brevet-Admirals, necessitated by the vast expansion of military command responsibilities under the Galactic Empire, and later during the Yuuzhan Vong War.

Within the Imperial Navy, Rear Admirals held a position of systems admiral (also known as commodore) when they commanded a systems force. However, most systems forces contained only one squadron and Rear Admirals shared both positions of systems admiral and squadron commander. Rear Admiral ranked above Senior Captain, and below Vice Admiral. The rank was the equivalent of Imperial Army and Starfighter Corps General.

The title existed in the Republic Navy at least as early as the Mandalorian Wars, when Captain Saul Karath was promoted to Rear Admiral in 3963 BBY after the Battle of Vanquo.

One Imperial Rear Admiral, Michael Unther, was promoted to Rear Admiral after retiring from active duty: somewhat bizarrely, he had previously been the commanding Admiral of a Sector Fleet.

Text and facts from the “Rear Admiral/Legends” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.