The Commander-in-Chief (Navy) (Burmese: ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ် (ရေ)) is the highest-ranking officer in the Defence Services (Navy), the navy branch of Myanmar Defence Services or Tatmadaw. The officeholder reports directly to the Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services and is a member of the highest defence leadership within the country. After the unification: 187 of Army, Navy, and Air Force in 1955,[2]: 128 the Tatmadaw had the Chief of Staff system and the branches were led by Vice Chief of Staff (Army), Vice Chief of Staff (Navy), and Vice Chief of Staff (Air), respectively,[3] until 1989. A new system was introduced in 1989 during the reorganisation and each branch is now led by its own Commander-in-Chief.[4][5] Following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, leadership changes in the Navy have been closely tied to wider military reshuffles.[6]
| Commander-in-Chief (Navy) | |
|---|---|
| ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ် (ရေ) | |
_flag_of_Myanmar.svg) | |
| Office of the Commander-in-Chief (Navy) | |
| Member of | National Defence and Security Council |
| Reports to | Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services |
| Seat | Naypyidaw, Myanmar |
| Appointer | Military Appointments General |
| Formation | 1948 (as CO, Burma Navy) 1989 (as C-in-C(Navy)) |
| First holder | Khin Maung Bo (as CO, Burma Navy) Maung Maung Khin (as C-in-C(Navy)) |
| Deputy | Chief of Staff (Navy) |
List of CO/ CNS/ VCS(Navy)/ C-in-C(Navy)
edit(Dates in italics indicate de facto continuation of office)
| No. | Portrait | Name (Birth–Death) |
Term of office | Ref. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Took office | Left office | Time in office | ||||
| Commanding Officer, Burma Navy[2] | ||||||
| 1 |  |
Commander Khin Maung Bo (?–?) |
4 January 1948 | 8 May 1948 | 125 days | [1] |
| Chief of Naval Staff[2] | ||||||
| (1) | |
Commander Khin Maung Bo (?–?) |
8 May 1948 | 13 June 1952 | 4 years, 36 days | [1] |
| 2 | |
Commodore Than Phe (?–?) |
14 June 1952 | 28 September 1955 | 3 years, 106 days | [1] |
| Vice Chief of Staff, Defence Services (Navy)[2] | ||||||
| (2) | |
Commodore Than Phe (?–?) |
28 September 1955 | 21 May 1962 | 6 years, 235 days | [1] |
| 3 | |
Commodore Thaung Tin (?–?) |
30 May 1962 | 7 March 1973 | 10 years, 281 days | [1] |
| 4 | |
Rear Admiral Chit Hlaing (?–?) |
8 March 1974 | 15 October 1980 | 6 years, 221 days | [1] |
| 5 | |
Rear Admiral Maung Maung Win (?–?) |
16 October 1980 | 4 November 1985 | 5 years, 19 days | [1] |
| 6 | |
Vice Admiral Maung Maung Khin (?–?) |
5 November 1985 | 10 May 1989 | 3 years, 186 days | [1] |
| Commander-in-Chief (Navy)[4] | ||||||
| (6) | |
Vice Admiral Maung Maung Khin (?–?) |
10 May 1989 | 4 February 1992 | 2 years, 270 days | [1] |
| 7 | |
Vice Admiral Than Nyunt (?–2023) |
5 February 1992 | 15 June 1995 | 3 years, 130 days | [1] |
| 8 | |
Vice Admiral Tin Aye (?–?) |
16 June 1995 | 13 November 1997 | 2 years, 150 days | [1] |
| 9 | |
Vice Admiral Nyunt Thein (?–?) |
24 November 1997 | 29 July 2000 | 2 years, 248 days | [1] |
| 10 | |
Vice Admiral Kyi Min (?–?) |
9 August 2000 | 1 January 2004 | 3 years, 145 days | [1] |
| 11 |  |
Vice Admiral Soe Thein (born 1949) |
2 January 2004 | 20 June 2008 | 4 years, 170 days | [1] |
| 12 |  |
Admiral Nyan Tun (born 1954) |
21 June 2008 | 15 August 2012 | 1 year, 55 days | [1] |
| 13 | .jpg) |
Admiral Thura Thet Swe (born ?) |
31 August 2013 | 10 August 2015 | 1 year, 344 days | [1] |
| 14 | .jpg) |
Admiral Tin Aung San (born 1960) |
11 August 2015 | 1 February 2021 | 5 years, 174 days | [1] |
| 15 | _(cropped).jpg) |
Admiral Moe Aung (born 1966) |
2 February 2021 | 9 January 2024 | 2 years, 341 days | [1] |
| 16 | |
Vice Admiral Zwe Win Myint (born 1968) |
9 January 2024 | 13 July 2024 | 186 days | [1] |
| 17 | |
Admiral Htein Win (born 1969) |
14 July 2024 | Incumbent | 1 year, 348 days | [1] |
Existing positions named C-in-C and CS
edit- Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services
- Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services, Commander-in-Chief (Army)
- Commander-in-Chief (Navy)
- Commander-in-Chief (Air)
- Chief of the General Staff (Army, Navy and Air)
- Chief of Staff (Army)
- Chief of Staff (Navy)
- Chief of Staff (Air)
References
edit- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 DSMuseum (30 March 2026). "ဒုတိယကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ်(ရေ)/ ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ်(ရေ) တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်ခဲ့သူများ" [Individuals who have served as the Vice Chief of Staff (Navy)/ Commander-in-Chief (Navy)]. Defence Services Museum (in Burmese). Defence Services (Army, Navy, Air Force) News Techonlogy Department. Retrieved 22 April 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 တပ်မတော်သမိုင်း vol. 4
- ↑ ၁၉၅၉ခုနှစ်၊ တပ်မတော်နည်းဥပဒေများ [The Defence Services Rules, 1959] (Bilingual; English and Burmese)
- 1 2 ၁၉၅၉ ခုနှစ်၊ တပ်မတော်နည်းဥပဒေများကို ပြင်ဆင်သည့် နည်းဥပဒေများ [The Rules Amending the Defence Services Rules, 1959]; in Burmese and English
- ↑ Selth, Andrew (2002): Burma's Armed Forces: Power Without Glory, Eastbridge. ISBN 1-891936-13-1
- ↑ "Myanmar Navy Chief Transferred to National Security Advisor". The Irrawaddy. 9 January 2024. Retrieved 10 August 2025.