The Galloping Ghost

by Carl P. LaVO

  In the latter stages of the war, with the Navy poised to defeat Japan, Truman and Nimitz had a falling out over the president’s intention to drop the atomic bombs on Japan. The admiral also disagreed with Truman’s idea of instituting a universal military training program of six months. Nimitz thought the latter was a waste of government money, and believed there was no need to drop the two atomic bombs, that it wouldn’t save that many American lives at the cost of two Japanese cities. Due to the admiral’s intransigence, the president adamantly opposed Nimitz becoming chief of naval operations despite his immense popularity throughout the country. “If it hadn’t been for such a blunt man as Admiral King [the outgoing chief of naval operations], he probably wouldn’t have been promoted,” explained Fluckey. “But from what I understand, Admiral King told Truman personally, ‘You either make Nimitz chief of naval operations, or you explain to the American public why not.’ ”

  The president caved in. But he appointed Nimitz to a two-year term—not the customary four.

  For Fluckey, the role of personal aide demanded long hours and a blur of activities. The routine was start work at 7:30 in the morning until 7:00 at night, seven days a week. Afterward the admiral and his aide usually attended social events until 11:00, when they called it quits. Fluckey handled the admiral’s appointments, helped with his speeches, accompanied him wherever he went, and was his liaison to the public. It wasn’t unusual for three hundred or four hundred telephone calls to come in every day, as well as lots of letters. “The mail was just phenomenal,” said Fluckey. “Any time Admiral Nimitz did something that was out in the newspapers or something, the mail just came in by sackfuls.” The admiral often made three speeches a day, each laid out by Fluckey on cards put in Nimitz’s pockets. The admiral had a knack for using humor and narrative stories, especially useful when dealing with the press. Recalled Fluckey, “He taught me to be a pretty good storyteller because, at press conferences, when we were moving into questions and fields that were not quite ready to be publicized, then he would start to tell a story. He’d say, ‘That question reminds me of a story . . .’ and he would start to tell the story. This broke the chain of thought.”

  Nimitz was careful about those he depended on for advice. “He didn’t like yes-men around him, and he used me constantly to bounce ideas off,” recalled Fluckey, an idea-a-minute man himself. “The bounce was usually quite good. If I didn’t believe in them, he expected me to speak up and I wouldn’t hesitate.”

  To Fluckey, Admiral Nimitz was a leader, not a driver. Either style could work, illustrated by the difference between Nimitz and Admiral King, known for his incendiary temper. “It’s the difference in whether people will work their hearts out for you,” said his aide of the gentle-spirited Nimitz. “The driver had a job getting this done, whereas the people just want to do the very best they can for somebody they like. Admiral Nimitz usually made people so ashamed of themselves, of their narrow, bigoted, parochial wheeling and dealing viewpoint or outlook,” said his aide. “He would never lose his temper, in spite of what people were trying to foist on him. And then his calm patience would spread like the sea. When conferees were getting angry, he would halt everything by saying, ‘No further decisions will be reduced today. Now talk it out.’ The next morning they would reconvene and decisions came out one, two, three as quickly as you can snap your fingers. His leadership was amazing in this regard.”

  Nimitz had a cordial working relationship with Congress but didn’t trust lawmakers to deliver on promises. In an appearance before an appropriations panel, for instance, the lawmakers fawned over him while going over the Navy’s budget, assuring him of support while asking, “Are you sure you have enough, Admiral?” Nimitz replied the budget was sufficient. Later Fluckey expressed surprise at the generosity shown by the lawmakers. Yes, replied the admiral, but they should be ignored. “The party line this year is to cut, and cut they will, and it’s very sickening when people—there they are reasonable while they’re listening to you, but the minute you’re away, they’ll go ahead back and adopt the party line. So now we’ll go back and plan for the cuts.” Three weeks later the cuts were announced and Nimitz was ready with a plan to deal with them.

  The admiral and his aide became quite fond of each other. “He grew on me so rapidly that really he became closer to me than my own father, and I could see his effect on everybody else in much the same way,” said Fluckey. Indeed, the admiral drew loving throngs just about everywhere he went. “I used to carry handfuls of autographed cards in my pockets,” explained his aide. “Women would kneel in front of him, grab his pants leg, kiss the cuffs of his pants. They’d kiss the sleeves of his uniform, just stop him, absolutely stop him dead in the street and he couldn’t move.”

  One such occasion was at a governors’ conference in Kansas City, where Nimitz gave the keynote address. Afterward he and Fluckey were coming down the stairs of the capitol before thousands of visitors who had come to get a glimpse of the admiral. “The crowds broke through the police lines and started running up the steps to get a hold of him,” recalled Fluckey. “I had another group of policemen I kept on the side that came charging in to form a circle around him. They broke through them, and I grabbed Admiral Nimitz by the hand and dragged him back up the steps, because I really thought he would just be trampled to death. I’m talking about thousands of people, if you can imagine it. I just kept pulling him up the steps as fast as we could, with a few people clawing at him, and right back into the capitol, and finally pushed him into a men’s restroom. Here were all these ladies outside and they broke right past me and went right into the restroom.” The admiral had to stand on a toilet seat in an enclosed stall to keep from being seen. Later he and Fluckey slipped out unnoticed through a basement entrance to the capitol.

  In Washington Nimitz’s popularity made it virtually impossible for him and his wife to go out together in public. Seeing a movie was impossible; patrons would interrupt constantly or stare at the couple. According to Fluckey, the Nimitzes resorted to dressing up in old gardening clothes with slouch hats and leaving their home at the Naval Observatory through a backyard garden gate in the evening, crossing Wisconsin Avenue unnoticed on the way to a movie theater.

  The seven-day pace as Nimitz’s aide was tough not only on Gene but on his family. At a dinner for the Fluckeys at the Nimitz home, Mrs. Nimitz asked Marjorie how “shore duty” was going now that her husband was home from the war. “Well,” she replied, “if you can call this ‘shore duty,’ I see less of my husband than I saw of him during the war practically and certainly less than at any time he’s been on sea duty before.” Mrs. Nimitz wasn’t surprised. She’d been trying to pare down the admiral’s hours without success. The price of being a Navy wife.

  Since she liked Marjorie immensely, Mrs. Nimitz later scolded the admiral for the “lousy life” he was imposing on the wives. He decided she was right. There would be no more working hours on Sunday. He also began dismissing his staff at 4:00 pm on Saturdays.

  The Fluckeys and the Nimitzes found common ground in a most unusual way four months into Gene’s new assignment. It was late March 1946 and the admiral and Army Gen. Dwight Eisenhower were invited to speak at the University of Richmond, where they were to receive honorary degrees. Nimitz and his wife had invited Marjorie to come along to make a foursome. She felt ill that morning and declined. After the ceremony, historian Douglas Scott Freeman hosted a noontime reception at his antebellum mansion. Mint juleps were served amid much laughter as the two military leaders shared humorous vignettes from the war. When the early afternoon reception broke up, Nimitz suggested that he and his wife repay the courtesy call that Marjorie and Gene had made to their home in the observatory. The admiral suggested his aide take along a fresh mint julep for Marjorie.

  What could he say? “Wunderbar!” remarked Fluckey. “Marjorie certainly will be feeling better by now.”

  Mint julep in hand, Gene and the Nimitzes climbed into the couple’s chauffeured Marine
car. Fluckey, holding the drink steady, sat on the front seat next to the driver all the way back to his snow-draped Virginia neighborhood near Washington. When the car turned onto Gene’s street, the passengers were startled at the sound of a radio blaring full blast. “What crummy neighbors,” Gene thought. To the commander’s great chagrin, the door to his home was wide open with the sound of the radio pouring from inside. Flustered, he jumped from the car, still holding the mint julep, and ran up the steps while calling out his wife’s name, leaving the driver to assist the admiral and his wife. Marjorie wasn’t there. Further, the normally immaculate living room was a mess, with children’s coats and newspapers scattered everywhere. Gene quickly shoveled off a place for the Nimitzes to sit while tossing the rest of the junk behind a sofa. As the Nimitzes entered, he suggested Marjorie was at a neighbor’s house.

  “While we’re waiting, what libation would you like?” he asked. “Iced tea,” replied the admiral. “But isn’t that water coming from under the door into the kitchen?”

  At that moment Fluckey turned and heard the swish of running water. Running for the door into the kitchen, he pushed it open to find daughter Barbara and all the neighborhood kids hosing down mud on the floor.

  “Out—all of you! And take your hose with you!” demanded Fluckey as the children scattered through a back door.

  Hearing the commotion, Nimitz called out to eight-year-old Barbara, who squeezed past her father before he could catch her and ran to the admiral, plopping on his knee. As they chatted, Fluckey noticed mud from her snow outfit sliding down the trouser leg of the admiral’s best dress uniform. Gene pointed to it but Nimitz waved him off. Fluckey went to get a towel and returned with the iced tea just as Marjorie walked in, calming her frantic husband. The Nimitzes expressed complete understanding.

  After a brief visit, Fluckey escorted his guests back to their car, where the driver stood at attention next to the open rear door to the plush 1941 Packard. Unfortunately the kids who ran from the Fluckey backyard had left the gate open. The family’s two cocker spaniels were loose in the yard next door, rolling around on a fresh coat of fish bone fertilizer. Gene, whenever he wanted to take the dogs for a ride, would open the door of his sedan and they would jump in. Seeing the admiral’s door swing open, the dogs came running, bounding inside the car and onto the back seat before the driver could react.

  “Smoky! Nibs! Come here!” yelled Gene, completely mortified. Marjorie, in the background, yelled at her husband, “Don’t yell at Smoky!” Too late. Both dogs exited the car in fright, leaving a puddle of urine on the seat. Mrs. Nimitz entered the car and sat down, let out a yelp, and scrambled back out. Urine mixed with fish bone dripped from the back of her silk dress. Commander Fluckey, embarrassed and turning redder than his hair, pulled out a wad of tissues and began wiping the backside of Mrs. Nimitz’s dress. “Gene,” said the admiral, taking the Kleenex from his hand. “I think I had better take care of that part of her anatomy.”

  Marjorie, who appeared with a towel, apologized profusely, as did her husband, leaning into the car to sop up the puddle while noticing the pungent odor of fertilizer permeating the car. Shaking his head, he stood up and lifted his hands to the heavens in remorse. By that time the Nimitzes were doubled over in laughter, tears in their eyes. Catching her breath, Mrs. Nimitz said, “Gene, please don’t worry. We’ve brought up four children.”

  Fluckey, seeing no humor in the moment, offered to drive the couple back to the observatory in his car. But they wouldn’t hear of it. Said Nimitz to the driver, “Cozard, open up all the windows—we’ll ride up in the front with you.” Still laughing and waving, off they went.

  The Fluckeys sat down in a daze. “We thought we might receive orders the next day to one of the three S’s—Siberia, Saudi Arabia, or the South Pole,” recalled Gene.

  The following morning Fluckey arrived at work ahead of Nimitz so he could call Capt. John Davidson to report the admiral might be looking for a new aide and that Gene would appreciate Davidson’s effort in finding a submarine for him. A half hour later Nimitz arrived, smiling. Fluckey offered to resign. But the admiral waved him off, saying that he and his wife had never had such a “uniquely enjoyable call” in their entire career.

  Fluckey called Marjorie to report all was well and then phoned Davidson. Cancel the submarine request.

  As it turned out, the Nimitzes and the Fluckeys became best of friends. Whenever the admiral wanted to refuse a dinner, he’d get his aide to invite him to his house. “The neighbors were always amazed to be invited in to play poker with Admiral and Mrs. Nimitz and have a potluck supper,” said Fluckey. “He was an excellent player. It was always amusing, because he had a lot of card tricks that he knew.”

  The admiral was also a skilled horseshoe tosser. He used that ability, among other things, to soften up crusty Harry Truman. Nimitz had established a Little White House in Key West where the president could relax. “The admiral provided submarine rides for him there, even on some of the old German submarines that we had. He also went out personally with him aboard some of the carriers, to show him what carriers could do, and I think he really had Truman becoming more and more Navy-minded.”

  One day Fluckey got a call from the reigning world horseshoe champion who planned a visit and wanted to know if he could get an autographed photo of Admiral Nimitz. Fluckey was sure the admiral would want to meet the champion, which he did, engaging him for an hour after canceling all appointments. During that session the admiral phoned the president. “Mr. President, I’ve got the champion horseshoe pitcher of the world over here. We’d like to come over to the White House and show you how he can pitch horseshoes.” Truman, who loved the game, was delighted and canceled his own appointments. Fifteen minutes later the president, the admiral, the famed sub captain, and the world champion were all at the White House doing all kinds of tricks pitching horseshoes.

  During Fluckey’s eighteen months with Nimitz, the admiral successfully downsized the Navy. Secretary Forrestal also worked out a military unification plan. Rather than alter either the Army or the Navy, the plan stressed coordinating military, diplomatic, and economic aspects of national security in a more systematic approach. The plan created a presidential advisory board—later to be known as the National Security Council—which consisted of representatives from each of the armed forces, the State Department, and various civilian agencies chosen by the president. Augmenting the advisory board was a Central Intelligence Agency to ensure intelligence operations throughout the government were well coordinated. A third component was creation of a new independent branch of the military—the Air Force—to direct land-based strategic bombing campaigns against foreign enemies. The Army and the Navy retained their specialized air forces—ground troop support for the Army and aircraft carriers for the Navy to protect the Fleet.

  By the end of 1947 Nimitz became special assistant to the secretary of the navy in the western sea frontier, a post he held for little more than a year before becoming a roving goodwill ambassador for the fledgling United Nations. Commander Fluckey, meanwhile, had returned to the Silent Service. He relocated with his family back to New London, where he assumed command of the submarine Halfbeak (SS-352). There he renewed old ties with the submarine community, stung by news from the Joint Army Navy Assessment Committee (JANAC).

  JANAC had been at work since the end of the war trying to verify through copious Japanese records all sinkings credited to the Silent Service. Admiral Lockwood had long claimed his skippers had sent 10 million tons of shipping to the ocean bottom. The committee ultimately agreed that 10 million tons of shipping had been sunk—but only half was due to submarines. Japanese records could verify only 5.3 million tons—1,314 ships—sunk by submarines. The announcement proved to be an embarrassment for sub skippers. Top-ranked Richard O’Kane of the Tang had been credited with 31 ships at 227,800 tons during the war. The official JANAC tally, however, came to 24 ships at 93,824 tons—a considerable fall but still ranking him number
one in numbers sunk. Fluckey, who was the second leading skipper at the end of the war with 25 ships at 179,700 tons, fell to fourth with a JANAC-confirmed total of 16.33 ships sunk at 94,409 tons, still making him number one in tonnage sunk. What really rankled him was JANAC crediting him with a single sinking in Nam Kwan Harbor.

  In their defense, submarine commanders could only estimate total tonnage of target ships and often had to rely on “breaking up noises” after an attack to confirm a sinking. Visual sighting of a ship going down was the only reliable barometer of a successful attack. Poor surface conditions, swift counterattacks, and darkness often prevented that. Admiral Lockwood and the skippers also pointed out that JANAC didn’t credit them with any ships under five hundred tons—and they were numerous. Nor did the committee tally ships that were beached and effectively put out of the war—there were many. JANAC also nullified credit when an enemy ship had been attacked and sunk by more than one submarine. Still, by any measure, the submarine force had done a remarkable job, given the unreliability of its torpedoes. The subs sank a Japanese battleship, six large aircraft carriers, six escort carriers, seven heavy cruisers, thirteen light cruisers, and numerous destroyers. Many in the Navy believed the blockade was so effective that it literally could have starved Japan into submission without dropping the atomic bomb. But the United States was in no mood to wait after four years of combat. Nor was there time to dawdle on what-ifs at the close of the war. The A-bombs were a message to a new and potentially more deadly foe—the Soviet Union. And Gene Fluckey soon would serve on the front lines of what was to become the Cold War.

  The Fluckey Factor

  It was a dreary, cold November afternoon in 1947 when the Boy Scouts made a surprise visit to Gene Fluckey at his home in Connecticut. He and his family had moved into new quarters seemingly for the umpteenth time, this time to the tiny hamlet of Groton at the big sub base. It was typical for naval visitors to meet often with the captain on business in his den. But this was unusual. Tom Keane, national public relations director of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), and two BSA executives had arrived from New York City. They had learned from a speech by Admiral Nimitz at Scouting’s national convention in October that Fluckey was a former Scout who had dropped out as a teenager. Keane explained how Scouting was in trouble. A growth spurt anticipated after the war never materialized. Quite the opposite was happening: thousands of youths were abandoning the organization. An internal investigation determined teenagers had begun ridiculing Scouting. The FBI, asked to investigate, concluded that communist sympathizers were trying to undermine the organization and were pushing the line in the nation’s schools, “Don’t act like a Boy Scout, don’t be a sissy!”