The Galloping Ghost

by Carl P. LaVO

  What Gates didn’t know was that Smedberg had a secret weapon. “Fortunately, I had this most magnificent head of department, Gene Fluckey, who was a great submarine wartime hero, one of the greatest, I think, we ever had, Congressional Medal of Honor winner in submarines, who was the head of my fund drive.”

  Fluckey approached the task with meteoric fervor. “He had a brilliant idea a minute,” said the admiral. “I was constantly being pushed and prodded to do things I wouldn’t really ever have done myself.” Things like putting a Cadillac and a Ford Thunderbird sports car in the middle of the academy to be raffled off. And a brand-new speed boat. A sail boat. And a Piper aircraft. All Fluckey ideas. Volunteers stood long hours, day after day, selling tickets beside each of the raffle items set up all over the campus. Only one prize would be awarded. Net proceeds: $75,000. That was just the beginning.

  Fluckey’s full-court-press put Smedberg on the griddle occasionally. “One day I got a call from Don Felt, who was the vice chief of Naval Operations, and he said, ‘Smedberg, what the hell are you trying to do?’ I said, ‘What do you mean, Don?’ He said, ‘This whole Pentagon is filled with midshipmen selling raffle tickets for your god-damned stadium. Get them out of here. Don’t you know it’s against the law?’ ”

  Which it was in D.C. but not in Maryland.

  Commander Fluckey forged ahead, soliciting contributions from corporations, movie studios, and advertising agencies. Billboards, car bumper placards, radio spots, TV commercials, and newspaper stories sprouted everywhere. Columbia recording artist Mitch Miller and the Naval Academy Choir cut a special wax recording of “Anchors Aweigh” backed by the “Marine Corps Hymn.” One million discs were distributed to 3,700 deejays across the United States and a thousand local naval districts. A contribution of one dollar earned a patron a record, all proceeds going to the stadium fund. Fluckey also lined up testimonials, all the time soliciting new ideas. He enlisted the help of Endorsements, a public relations firm in New York, and studied such articles as “Ten Rules for Believable Testimonials” from Advertising Requirements magazine. The captain arranged for Admiral Smedberg to appear on a national TV broadcast of “Person-to-Person” hosted by Edward R. Murrow, on which the admiral made a pitch for the stadium. Checks for a hundred dollars, two hundred dollars, five hundred dollars soon began rolling in. Fluckey also persuaded a Hollywood studio to film a movie skit with Burt Lancaster, Clark Gable, and Smedberg for use at halftime during football games, encouraging more contributions. The campaign percolated with energy and ideas. One was for memorial chairs in the new stadium for a hundred dollars a pop. Captain Fluckey was assertive, looking for donations in every possible place. When he was in Washington with the secretary of the navy to convince flag officers to contribute a hundred dollars each, he turned to the secretary and said, “Mr. Secretary, I don’t have your check.” Gene got the check.

  Fluckey coined the term “Concrete with Heart” in a four-paragraph appeal to Navy sailors and Marines everywhere to get behind the push. “The Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium,” he wrote, “is much more than just a football field. It is the only single memorial to the Navy and Marine Corps. The facade will be adorned with memorial plaques. State flags will fly from its highest points. Its balconies facing the field will be emblazoned with famous battles, such as Belleau Woods, Midway, Tarawa, Coral Sea, Iwo Jima, Inchon, etc. It will be an inspiration to every American who passes though its portals.”

  The appeal evoked an outpouring of contributions. Said one Marine sergeant in San Diego, “I’m the biggest dang Marine in the U.S., so here’s my whole big pay check for the biggest memorial we’ve needed for so long.” Another donor sent in what he could, with this note: “Dear Admiral. I’m 11 years old. I earned this dollar shoveling snow. I hope someday to play in our stadium.”

  Fluckey campaigned relentlessly, taking his quest international with ads in foreign periodicals. He made a personal pitch to Navy commanders at sea. He conceived a competition among them to raise the most money. Gates to the stadium were to be named after winning fleets. The rush was on—sometimes to the extreme.

  Adm. Wallace C. Beakley, commander of the Seventh Fleet, got into a fierce rivalry with Adm. Charles R. “Cat” Brown’s Sixth Fleet. Beakley was determined to win, even sending his men into the stores and “joy houses” in Singapore and Hong Kong to get contributions. The Rev. George N. Gilligan, a Catholic priest who ran a mission for visiting sailors in Hong Kong, was appalled and complained, terming the effort “polite blackmail” of Hong Kong merchants and wanted it stopped.

  Though Adm. Arleigh Burke, the chief of naval operations, and other flag officers thought Smedberg was going too far out on the limb this time, they stood on the sidelines. “They let me get away with it, because none of them really thought I was going to make it,” said the superintendent. “But they all wanted the stadium.”

  The Seventh Fleet eked out a victory, but both Fleets earned their gates.

  In all, Fluckey cashed out 300 memorial plaques, numerous gates, walls, and arches and more than 8,000 memorial chairs. The submarine fleet donated $10,000. Veterans of Fluckey’s old boat, the Barb, pledged $1,000.

  In the end, “the drive,” as Fluckey and Admiral Smedberg termed it, easily eclipsed the goal. The fund went over the top in July 1958. Captain Fluckey was ecstatic, announcing to the news media that the Navy had not used the services of professional fundraisers. “Ninety-eight cents out of every dollar is going into construction,” he declared.

  Four other fundraising drives in 1957–58 for the USS Enterprise, the Constellation, the Arizona Memorial, and the Air Force Academy Stadium failed. Navy Secretary Gates was amazed the academy’s effort succeeded. “Smeddy, I didn’t think you could do it. I don’t know yet how you did it,” he said to the superintendent. Replied Smedberg, “It was all due to Gene Fluckey. It wasn’t due to me, it was due to this dynamic Fluckey.”

  Construction of the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium began in the summer of 1957 and the stadium was dedicated on 26 September 1959. That day, the Midshipmen pounded William & Mary on the gridiron, 29-2. Though the team finished the season 5-4-1, Joe Bellino emerged as a star running back under first-year coach Wayne Hardin. The next year the team posted a 9-1 regular season record, with Bellino winning the coveted Heisman Trophy as the best halfback in college football. The team appeared in the Orange Bowl, losing narrowly to Missouri, 21-14.

  For Gene Fluckey, the dedication of the stadium seemed somewhat prophetic. In a letter to Admiral Nimitz in 1947 updating him on the Merit Badge quest, Fluckey made reference to the Navy’s growing inability to draw recruits. “Would you inform Admiral Denfeld [Nimitz’s replacement as chief of Naval Operations] that the personnel situation is scraping the bottom of the barrel to such an extent that he had better convert the naval Air Arm into a sky-writing outfit for recruiting purposes. Can’t you visualize the blue skies over a football stadium plastered with ‘Join the Navy’?”

  Twelve years later Gene Fluckey made that a possibility in Annapolis.

  Flag Officer

  NORFOLK—A small task force of three Navy ships slipped away from Norfolk piers Tuesday on a mission which will have far reaching implications in United States relations with newly emerging countries in Africa. The mission of the force, under the direction of Rear Adm. Eugene B. Fluckey, the youthful commander of Amphibious Group 4, is to quietly extend the hand of friendship of the Navy and the United States to the peoples of the African continent. . . . Fluckey, who has been called on to direct the operation, is a much decorated hero of World War II.

  The Virginian-Pilot, 20 April 1961

  It was called Solant Amity II (short for South Atlantic Friendship) and for Gene Fluckey the voyage to Africa would mark the beginning of a decade of remarkable events for him as a flag officer in the Navy. The mission was to give the newly elevated rear admiral a chance to flex his leadership skills in an area of the world fast becoming a front line in the Cold War.

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sp; Gail Bove, Gene Fluckey’s granddaughter, as a teenager in the 1970s. Courtesy Fluckey family

  A prototype Regulus missile is poised for launch from the deck of a submarine in the mid-1950s. Commander Fluckey pioneered the use of missiles fired from the Barb in his last war patrol and conceived the idea of ballistic missile submarines as a deterrent to nuclear war. He was involved in the test program for the Regulus, which was the forerunner of Polaris and Triton missile systems. Courtesy Fluckey family

  Capt. Eugene Fluckey after achieving what others in the Navy thought was impossible—raising more than $2.2 million to construct the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium at the Naval Academy in 1959. Courtesy Fluckey family

  On promotion to rear admiral, Eugene Fluckey took command of Amphibious Group 4—the “Brush Fire Brigade”—stationed in the Caribbean in 1960. The admiral (on the right) learned to scuba dive and often joined commandos practicing undersea demolition techniques. Courtesy Fluckey family

  Rear Adm. Eugene Fluckey sharing a peck with South Africa’s “Lady in White” Perla Sidle Gibson prior to departure of the admiral’s flagship USS Spiegel Grove from Durban during his Solant Amity II goodwill cruise of African nations in 1961. Courtesy Fluckey family

  During the Solant Amity II cruise, Admiral Fluckey flew by helicopter to Lambarene, Gabon, on 15 August 1961 to visit Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Albert Schweitzer and deliver medical supplies to his hospital there. The admiral said the physician reminded him of Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz with “the twinkle in his eyes and the pervading humility.” Courtesy Fluckey family

  The atomic attack submarine Barb (SSN-596) floats down the ways at the Pascagoula River in Mississippi after its launch from the Ingalls Shipbuilding Yard on 12 February 1963. Mrs. Marjorie Fluckey was the ship’s sponsor. Her husband gave the keynote address on the occasion that included the first reunion of the original Barb’s crew. Courtesy Fluckey family

  Rear Admiral Fluckey (left) boards a Navy A3J Vigilante supersonic bomber at the Naval Weapons Evaluation Facility in Kirtland, New Mexico, in 1962. Accompanying the admiral is pilot Lt. Cdr. Samuel R. Chessman. The two reached Mach 2 in a test flight arranged for Fluckey, then the president of the Navy Board of Inspection and Survey. Back on the ground, it was announced that the admiral was the first submarine officer to fly at twice the speed of sound. U.S. Navy photo

  The couple pose in Oahu, Hawaii, prior to the admiral being detached to become director of naval intelligence in Washington in 1966. Courtesy Fluckey family

  Gene Fluckey and his second wife, Margaret, cut the ribbon to open Fluckey Hall at the U.S. submarine base in Groton, Connecticut, on 17 November 1989. Vice Adm. John A. Tyree Jr. is in the background. Courtesy Fluckey family

  Rear Admiral Fluckey (holding American flag) with Margaret Fluckey and an unidentified Russian submarine officer participate in the Russian Peace Victory Parade on 9 May 1992. Courtesy Fluckey family

  Rear Adm. Eugene and Margaret Fluckey remained very active in events all over the world through the 1980s and 1990s. Courtesy Fluckey family

  On 4 June 1991 Admiral Fluckey posed with two residents of Nam Kwan who, as teenagers, remembered the attack on two Japanese convoys by the Barb and confirmed that not one but many ships were either sunk or damaged by the submarine in 1945. Courtesy Fluckey family

  Admiral Fluckey stands on a dock overlooking Nam Kwan Harbor where fifty years earlier he led an attack by the Barb on nearly thirty Japanese ships at anchor there. Courtesy Fluckey family

  Gene waves goodbye to residents of Nam Kwan and departs on the Chinese junk that carried him into the harbor. Courtesy Fluckey family

  The routes of the USS Barb’s five war patrols under the command of Gene Fluckey, 1944-45. Genevieve LaVO

  Nationalism was sweeping Africa, toppling colonies ruled for two centuries by Britain, France, Belgium, Portugal, and Spain. Rioting had erupted in British Nyasaland and the Belgium Congo, leading to independence and more rioting. Republics had been proclaimed in Central Africa, Niger, Upper Volta, Ivory Coast, and Dahoney. In South Africa the English-speaking white government clung to power amid international condemnation and internal unrest over its institutional racism. The United States viewed the continent as ripe for communist expansion at a time when newly elected President John F. Kennedy grappled with a series of foreign policy setbacks. Within days of Solant Amity II’s departure from Norfolk, two huge public relations disasters faced the president. On 12 April the Russians won the race to place the first man in orbit around the earth. Five days later a small force of rebels supported by the CIA landed at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in an attempt to overthrow the communist government of Fidel Castro. Soviet-armed troops backed by tanks crushed the invaders. Kennedy accepted full responsibility for the failed plot to a howl of worldwide scorn. The fledgling president was in need of any bit of good news—the kind vested in Gene Fluckey.

  Coming off the euphoria of the stadium drive in 1958, he had moved quickly toward flag rank by attending the National War College at Fort McNair in Washington followed by a year-long assignment to the National Security Council. On Fluckey’s selection as rear admiral in July 1960, Arleigh Burke sent congratulations but warned of how all-consuming his new duties would be: “Being a Flag Officer is much more difficult than anyone anticipates until he is faced with it. Your successes and failures will become well known quickly to many persons both inside and outside the Navy. Your responsibilities will increase tremendously and examples you set will have much greater effect than you as an individual perhaps realize now.”

  Fluckey’s first assignment was command of Amphibious Group 4, the so-called Brush Fire Brigade that guarded American interests in the Caribbean. The rear admiral learned to scuba dive and practiced undersea demolition techniques with his commandos. In January 1961 he had operational tactical command of a naval Task Fleet comprising sixty-five ships off the tip of Puerto Rico during a naval parade for forty-seven generals and admirals from Central and South America.

  Returning to Norfolk after months at sea, Gene was hopeful of a little shore duty that might extend into the summer. If that wasn’t possible, he and Marjorie anticipated the amphibious group being shifted to the Mediterranean, where she could relocate to an overseas base, allowing her to be with her husband at least some of the time.

  But that was not to be.

  The Solant Amity II mission was part of a broad initiative by the Kennedy administration to collect intelligence and curry influence in Africa south of the Sahara. An earlier voyage—Solant Amity I—had visited South America and the west coast of Africa between November 1960 and May 1961. Fluckey’s objective as commander of Solant Amity II was to venture to the turbulent east coast of the continent to establish friendships with new governments.

  The task force of Solant Amity II consisted of the amphibious dock landing ship USS Spiegel Grove (LSD-32), a tank landing ship, two destroyers, and a small refueling tanker. The ships carried 1,670 officers and men, including a company of 450 Marines and 6 helicopters aboard Spiegel Grove, Fluckey’s flagship. The idea was to host dignitaries in each country visited, open the ships to tours to show off the Navy’s equipment and personnel, participate in parades, stage performances by task force musicians, and distribute supplies and gifts. It took almost six weeks to fill the holds of the ships with food, candy, sporting equipment, souvenirs, toys, magazines, packets of seeds, Polaroid cameras, and fourteen tons of medical supplies.

  Fluckey had hoped to make it an all-inclusive visit to Africa, including stopovers in Portuguese territories. But the Navy declined. “Everyone turns down my request to visit the Portuguese Colonies to avoid widening the U.N. breach [with Portuguese colonial policies] which I argue endangers our primary foreign policy of maintaining NATO intact—and the Portuguese commanding there now are old friends from Lisbon,” Fluckey groused in a letter to retired Admiral Nimitz. The Navy, however, was in a dilemma. Portugal, one of the founding members of NATO and staunchly anticommunist, was determ
ined to hang on to its African colonies. Resulting bloody clashes between Portuguese soldiers and African rebels had cost numerous lives on both sides.

  With visits to the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique off limits, Fluckey set to the task of popping in and out of ports around the horn of Africa and up the east coast. From 1 May to 1 September Solant Amity II visited nineteen African countries and twenty-eight ports-of-call. The commander frequently went ashore to visit dignitaries or made helicopter visits to remote villages. He was a natural with his cheery disposition and willingness to engage people everywhere, young and old. He was a striking visage alighting from his helicopter in a short-sleeved, tropical white uniform in the remote deep bush village of Tsevie in Togo to present athletic equipment, candy, and medical supplies to tribal chiefs. In the former French colony of Gabon in west-central Africa, he did the same thing, winging into Lambarene in helicopters loaded with two thousand pounds of medical supplies for Dr. Albert Schweitzer. The Nobel Peace Prize-winning physician and humanitarian lunched with the rear admiral and escorted him around his hospital and the village for 4 hours, posing for photographers and discussing conditions in Gabon. Schweitzer was concerned independence had come too soon for a society not prepared to govern itself. “[Schweitzer] reminded me of Fleet Admiral Nimitz—that twinkle in his eye and the soul-pervading humility. What a man!” Fluckey later recalled.