On July 13, Admiral King flew into Pearl Harbor in his Coronado flag seaplane, trailing a large entourage of staff officers. After two long days of conferences at CINCPAC headquarters, King and Nimitz boarded a twin-tailed Lockheed Lodestar and went island-hopping through the Marshalls, with stops at Kwajalein and Eniwetok, and thence to Saipan on July 17. At Aslito Airfield, where fierce combat had raged just two weeks earlier, they were met on the tarmac by a delegation of military brass, press correspondents, and photographers, including General Holland “Howlin’ Mad” Smith, the commander of the Fifth Amphibious Corps (VAC), and Admiral Raymond Spruance, commander of the Fifth Fleet. The island had been declared secure a week earlier, but small-unit fighting was still underway in the more remote areas, and Japanese stragglers and holdouts numbered in the hundreds, perhaps even the thousands. King, who had not personally seen much of the combat zones in the Pacific, was keen to tour the island. Smith was concerned about snipers, but King insisted, so Smith detached three companies of marines to protect the two four-star admirals. King and Nimitz sat together in the back of a jeep and were driven in a long motorcade up the main road on the west coast, through the rubble-strewn ruins of the towns of Garapan, Tanapag, and Chalan Kanoa. Although the burial details had been working in shifts, the sickly sweet reek of rotting corpses was pervasive and inescapable. After a month on Saipan, Smith and his troops had ceased to notice it.
That afternoon, King, Nimitz, and Spruance rode a launch out to the Fifth Fleet flagship Indianapolis, which lay about a mile offshore. After a photo session under the ship’s 8-inch guns, they went together to the flag mess for an early supper. Spruance sat at the head of the table with King on his right and Nimitz on his left, and about a dozen other officers sat down the length of the table in descending order of rank and seniority. As dessert was served, a great black cloud of flies swarmed into the compartment through the open portholes. They had bred in the decomposing flesh of Saipan’s thousands of still-unburied dead, and had wafted out to the fleet on the prevailing breeze. The flies had been a problem for weeks, but the swarm that infested the Indianapolis that evening was the worst the crew had seen. They lit upon the table, the food, and the faces and hands of the men. They were hideously engorged, some nearly an inch long. According to Carl Moore, Spruance’s chief of staff, the creatures would not buzz away at a waving hand. If they landed on a man’s nose they had to be pushed or picked off, and “they’d be in your food and under your spectacles and into your ears and all over the place, and you kept thinking that they’d all been eating dead Japs and coming out to the ship for a little fresh air.”18 The mess stewards closed the portholes, but it was too late. Glasses were knocked over as disgusted officers tried to bat the insects away. Chairs scraped on deck as they stood and retreated from the scene, forsaking the decorum normally observed in the presence of four-star visitors.
At some point that day, King asked Spruance about his preparations for Operation CAUSEWAY, the prospective invasion of Formosa. The Fifth Fleet chief answered frankly: “I don’t like Formosa.”19 Instead, he proposed to seize Iwo Jima and Okinawa, in that order. Iwo was on the flight line between the Marianas and Tokyo; possessing it would blunt Japanese counterstrikes by air. Okinawa was smaller than Formosa, and thus more manageable. The island was of ideal size for Allied purposes, said Spruance—small enough to conquer in a matter of weeks, but large enough to serve as a base of operations against the Japanese home islands. It was strategically located along sea routes linking Japan to its southern resource territories. Okinawa offered many potential landing sites, so the defenders would not be able to concentrate their firepower against any one beach. The island could serve either as a stepping stone to the China coast or a launchpad for an invasion of Kyushu.
But Okinawa was just 330 miles from Kyushu, so the amphibious fleet could count on massive and sustained air attacks. The closest bases of Allied support would be more than a thousand miles away. The carrier task forces would be obliged to provide air protection, remaining in the area for a period of several weeks without intermission. Considering these challenges, King asked Spruance, “Can you do it?” Spruance replied that it could be done, so long as the logistics forces perfected the technique of transferring ammunition at sea. That was the one remaining hurdle that the Fifth Fleet had not yet solved. But Spruance was convinced that it could be solved, and as usual he was right.20
Because he was the fleet commander who would oversee the invasion, Spruance’s view carried exceptional heft. But he was hardly alone. Opposition to CAUSEWAY was coalescing among influential players in the fleet, the amphibious forces, and Nimitz’s headquarters. Many doubted whether Formosa was worth the immense effort; the invasion would rival the scale of the D-Day landings in Normandy. And if it turned out to be absolutely necessary to take Formosa, they told King, they would first need the airfields of Luzon and the fleet base at Manila Bay, so bypassing the Philippines was not an option. On the plane back to Hawaii on July 19, King got an earful from Robert “Mick” Carney, Admiral Halsey’s chief of staff, who called Formosa “a time-waster.”21 Instead, said Carney, “the buildup should be on Luzon and we should flatten Formosa and bypass it.”22
King asked, “Do you want to make a London out of Manila?”
“No, Admiral,” said Carney. “What I’m thinking of is making another England out of Luzon.”23
In a last round of conferences at CINCPAC headquarters on July 20, King sat patiently while the Pacific fleet planners registered their various objections to Formosa. Admiral John H. Towers, the deputy CINCPAC, stressed that neither Guam nor Saipan offered sufficient port facilities to mount an invasion force large enough to take the big Chinese island. That was even more true now that the Army Air Forces intended to base at least twelve B-29 air groups in the Marianas. The contemplated preparations for Operation CAUSEWAY, Towers warned, would probably require a “cutback in the VLR [B-29] program.”24 That, in turn, would arouse the ire of General Henry “Hap” Arnold and the USAAF.
In the face of these objections, King remained stubbornly committed to CAUSEWAY. But he did not attempt to use the power of his towering rank to suppress dissent among his colleagues. Contrary to his characterization in much of the historical literature, the CNO was not a caudillo. He insisted on a full airing of views and considered the counterarguments in good faith. As Nimitz was wrapping up the talks, King turned to Carney and asked him to repeat his objections to Formosa once more for the record, to be certain that they were entered into the conference minutes. One can scarcely imagine Douglas MacArthur soliciting the contrary views of a subordinate in such a setting.25
King had not been invited to remain in Hawaii for the president’s visit. Indeed, he and Marshall had been specifically excluded from the proceedings. It was explained that FDR and Leahy wanted to hear the uninhibited views of the two Pacific theater commanders, and that they were already fully acquainted with the views of the Joint Chiefs. But King resented being barred from this important Pacific command summit. In his postwar memoir, he noted that Roosevelt had kicked off his reelection campaign immediately prior to the conference, and concluded that the president now wanted to “show the voters that he was commander in chief.”26
In King’s absence, Nimitz would have to make the case for CAUSEWAY. King was concerned, with good reason, that Nimitz’s heart was not really in the fight. The CINCPAC shared the misgivings expressed by his colleagues in the headquarters and in the fleet. Landing troops on the big Chinese island would not be wise, he warned King on July 24, unless Japanese airpower on nearby Luzon was first neutralized: “Inability effectively [to] reduce or contain enemy air forces on whitewash [Luzon] would render success of causeway doubtful.”27 Furthermore, Nimitz added, it might become necessary to occupy all of Formosa, rather than just the northern and southern coasts. If that proved true, he would need more of everything—more troops, more air groups, more shipping, and more naval power. And if the scale of the Formosa operation was to
be expanded, the Americans would need larger and more proximate naval and air bases, which in turn pointed back to Luzon.
King did not insist that the CINCPAC parrot his views on Formosa. He knew that FDR and Leahy expected the Pacific Fleet chief to speak for himself. “I tried not to press him too much,” said King, “because I was trained to let people think for themselves.” But King feared that Nimitz would be overmatched against “two of the shrewdest and most adroit arguers available. Nimitz was a good sound man but he wasn’t even in the same class to be pitted with General MacArthur in that way and, of course, Mr. Roosevelt was a ‘past master.’ ”28
On July 24, two days before the president’s scheduled arrival in Pearl Harbor, King and his party boarded the Lockheed and took off for the mainland. They flew east over the Baltimore and her escorts, inbound for Oahu in the opposite direction.
DURING HER PASSAGE TO OAHU, the Baltimore observed wartime cruising conditions, which meant constant zigzagging to foil enemy submarines, and darkening the ship between dusk and dawn. The weather was cool with moderate swell and light breezes. Navy fighters and patrol planes were often seen patrolling overhead. The president spent most of the voyage in his cabin, sleeping and reading, replenishing his strength for the punishing schedule that lay ahead. He was briefed each day by Admiral Leahy. Most afternoons, he and Leahy sat for an hour or two on the flag bridge, taking in the sun and salt air. A movie was screened each evening in Leahy’s cabin. Fala, as usual, was everyone’s friend; members of the crew slipped him snacks and snipped away locks of his hair as souvenirs, until the captain told them to desist. It would not do the Baltimore’s reputation any good if the president’s dog arrived in Hawaii overweight and looking as if he had the mange.
Bill Leahy was a dignified figure with dark, watchful eyes crowned by shaggy eyebrows, a furrowed brow, and a bald pate. He was discreet, formal, and precise in speech and manner. Even while in uniform, he projected the bearing of a statesman or diplomat. Yet he had risen to serve as chief of naval operations (CNO), the highest rank in the navy, before his retirement from the service in 1939. FDR had thereafter named him governor of Puerto Rico, then ambassador to Vichy France. In 1942, the president had given serious consideration to making Leahy the supreme commander in the Pacific, with authority over both MacArthur and Nimitz. Instead, he was returned to active duty as a four-star admiral and named “military chief of staff” to the president, in which capacity he also served as one of four members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Leahy was the senior American military officer of the Second World War, as determined by rank and date of original commission. He was the first admiral or general in the nation’s history to receive a fifth star. His influence shaped every major military and foreign policy decision of the war. But Leahy was also one of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s oldest and most trusted friends, a member of his loyal inner circle, who worked in the East Wing of the White House and spent most of his waking hours at the president’s side. His role as the president’s constant daily companion had recently expanded, because the White House aide Harry Hopkins (who had functioned as Leahy’s civilian counterpart, and was likewise personally close to FDR) had been sidelined by terminal stomach cancer.
Before the National Security Act of 1947, the JCS had no statutory charter and no official chairman. There was no formal nominating process, and Senate confirmation was not required. Leahy’s role is sometimes described as a “precursor” to that of chairman of the JCS, for he did not possess the formal powers of a modern-day chairman. It appears that Leahy was simply added to the committee by the unanimous concurrence of FDR and his service chiefs. In recognition of his seniority, the other chiefs acclaimed him as their de facto chairman. These decisions were spontaneous and ad hoc.
It is worth dwelling for a moment on these dry particulars, because they illuminate the persistent confusion in the historical literature about Leahy’s role in the war. The admiral is alternately named as “White House chief of staff” or “chairman of the Joint Chiefs.” Both jobs exist to this day, but they are vastly different, and a single individual would never occupy them simultaneously. So what was Leahy, exactly? Was he a mere staffer? A dependable loyalist? A sophisticated message-runner? FDR’s best friend? Or was he really the almighty chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? The answer seems to be that Bill Leahy was all of these things. He was the president’s alter ego, especially in the last year of FDR’s life; but he was also deeply respected by his fellow joint chiefs as a strategist, a former CNO, and a global statesman. The JCS made policy by consensus, rather than by majority vote. At the very least, therefore, Leahy was one of four equal voices in this powerful quartet. When and if the chiefs failed to muddle through to a unanimous decision, their deadlock would be appealed to the commander in chief, to whom Leahy was the principal link.
Most exchanges between FDR and Leahy occurred behind closed doors, in face-to-face meetings that produced no written record. Consequently, it is not always evident how their minds interacted. The conundrum is exacerbated by Leahy’s innate modesty and reserve; he was shy of publicity and seemingly indifferent to his place in history. In the scholarly and biographical literature, he tends to vanish into FDR’s shadow. No doubt he would have been pleased.*
On the morning of July 26, lookouts sighted Molokai, a brown lump of land about 50 miles off the port bow. An aerial escort of eighteen navy planes droned in from the west and circled low over the Baltimore. The weather was fair, the sea smooth, the breezes light and variable. Diamond Head, a rugged headland, rose from the sea ahead and marched to eastward, gradually uncovering the long white arc of Waikiki Beach and the city of Honolulu. Oahu’s steep green mountains soared majestically over the scene. Off the Pearl Harbor entrance channel, the Baltimore lay to while a tugboat delivered the harbor pilot and a welcoming party of military brass and civilians, including Admiral Nimitz, Lieutenant General Robert C. Richardson Jr. (commander of army forces in Nimitz’s theater), and Hawaii’s territorial governor, Ingram M. Stainback.
As the Baltimore crept into the crowded anchorage, it was clear that Pearl Harbor had been turned out to welcome the commander in chief. The sky overhead was darkened by hundreds of navy carrier planes flying in wingtip formation. Warships in the harbor were “dressed”—that is, festooned with pennants on lines that ran from the bow up to the masthead and aft to the stern. The crews were manning rails—dressed in white uniforms, standing to attention, spaced at 6-to-8-foot intervals and facing outward with hands clasped behind their backs. There had been no formal announcement of the president’s visit, but rumors and speculation had circulated widely. Since secrecy was evidently a lost cause, the presidential flag was hauled up the Baltimore’s main.
At 3:00 p.m., a harbor tug nudged the Baltimore into her berth against a concrete sea wall, just astern of the renowned aircraft carrier Enterprise. On the pier, a party of about two dozen admirals and generals waited by the gangway. The admirals wore dress whites; the marine generals wore green; the army generals wore khaki. Rarely, if ever, had so much brass been concentrated in one place. Behind them, corralled behind barricades, was an immense crowd of military personnel and civilian workers, numbering perhaps 20,000.
The officers mounted the gangway and were received on deck without honors. (The ritual had been suspended because it would have caused excessive delays in the afternoon’s schedule.) The delegation was escorted up to the bridge deck veranda, where FDR and Leahy had been chatting with Nimitz and Richardson. Introductions, handshakes, and small talk followed. Meanwhile, on the weather deck, navy photographers and a film crew were setting up equipment for a photo shoot scheduled for four o’clock.
General MacArthur’s absence was conspicuous. His plane had arrived an hour earlier at nearby Hickam Field. Nimitz’s deputy, Admiral Towers, had met the plane before coming aboard the Baltimore. But MacArthur had declined to accompany Towers directly to the Navy Yard, choosing instead to go to General Richardson’s house at Fort S
hafter, where he would lodge during the conference. That bordered upon a breach of protocol. On the Baltimore’s bridge, Towers discreetly relayed to Nimitz and Richardson the message given by MacArthur, “to convey to the president that he was at General Richardson’s quarters awaiting further instructions as to when he should pay his respects.”29 This message was passed to Leahy and the president. The party waited about twenty minutes, the awkwardness growing palpable. Then FDR turned to General Richardson and asked, “Will you get hold of him?”30 Richardson agreed and left the ship to fetch the missing SWPA commander.
ACCORDING TO HIS PILOT, Whelton “Dusty” Rhoades, MacArthur had barely slept during the twenty-eight-hour flight from Australia. His aircraft, a new Douglas C-54 Skymaster, was fitted with a comfortable cot, but MacArthur did not use it. He was tense and irritable, but showed no sign of fatigue. He paced indefatigably, up and down the aisle, for hours at a time. During a refueling stop in New Caledonia, MacArthur noted that it was the first time since the start of the war that he had set foot on soil outside his command area. That was true, but only because he had declined all previous invitations to planning conferences in Nouméa or Pearl Harbor.
While the C-54 was flying through inky darkness, Rhoades left the cockpit in the care of his copilot and went back to the main cabin to sit with the general, who started “one of his characteristic monologues, to which I was not expected to reply.” MacArthur told the pilot that he had no idea why he was being summoned to meet the president, but “the possible results of the pending conference could run the gamut, all the way from his being removed from his command, to his command’s being reduced in order to provide a holding action in New Guinea, to his being given the green light, together with men and equipment, to mount an assault on the Philippines.” Assuming that Roosevelt intended to use him as a prop for his reelection campaign, MacArthur grumbled that he would be dragooned into posing for “publicity pictures,” and said he hoped that “since he had been ordered to make this long trip and suffered some indignities thereon, the purpose would be more useful than that.”31
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