The Admirals

by Walter R. Borneman

  What’s more, King advocated unity of command at the tactical level in each theater of operations, but wanted strategic decisions to be made only at the Joint Chiefs level and then transmitted from Marshall and King to their respective commands. When adopted, this structure had the effect of making the Joint Chiefs the supreme military authority and Marshall and King the undisputed heads of their services subject only to the president.

  So the three chiefs of staff—Marshall, King, and Arnold, the latter subservient to Marshall—with Roosevelt’s ultimate blessing set about carving the Pacific into four areas of tactical command. In the Southwest Pacific Area, which included Australia, New Guinea, and the Netherlands East Indies, MacArthur was designated commander in chief, Southwest Pacific (COMSOWESPAC), over all army and navy forces of the Allied powers in that theater, principally the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands, effective April 18, 1942. As CINCPAC, Nimitz retained command over all units of the principal American fleet should it sail into the Southwest Pacific Area (as it had at Coral Sea), as well as being the commander in chief of all Allied army and navy forces in the remaining Pacific Ocean Area (CINCPOA).

  As the final lines were drawn, Marshall wanted one seemingly minor change: to push MacArthur’s area northward from the East Indies to include the Philippines, doing so, he said, for “psychological reasons.” At this point in the war, it seemed a relatively innocuous move, and King agreed to the concession. What it did, of course, was inadvertently sanction MacArthur’s determination to return to the Philippines whether or not such action was in the best interests of wider strategic concerns.

  Nimitz’s Pacific Ocean Area was further divided into the North Pacific Area, north of 42° north latitude; the South Pacific Area, south of the equator and east of 160° east longitude; and the remaining swath of the core Central Pacific Area. One problem that would soon arise was that the dividing line between the Southwest Pacific (MacArthur) and the South Pacific (Nimitz) areas along 160° east longitude ran right through Guadalcanal. The broader issues of independent areas of command and “MacArthur’s Navy,” as well as that of the Philippines, would reverberate throughout the war.5

  Prior to his first wartime conference with Nimitz in San Francisco just before the Battle of the Coral Sea, King had selected an area commander for the South Pacific. This was not to be his most enlightened personnel decision. The man he chose as commander in chief, South Pacific (COMSOPAC) was Vice Admiral Robert L. Ghormley. A 1906 graduate of Annapolis, one year behind Nimitz, Ghormley had a well-deserved reputation as a skilled planner and thoughtful strategist. While his sea duty included tours in cruisers and battleships, his record was heavy with staff work in Washington, including a stint as assistant chief of naval operations. Since August 1940, Ghormley had been in Great Britain as a special naval observer. But the very fact that Ghormley was still in London when replaced by banished ex-CNO Harold Stark in the spring of 1942 and knew little about the South Pacific should have been a warning flag.

  And there were others. Ghormley had been director of the War Plans Division when Bill Leahy was CNO. Despite Leahy’s strong efforts to plan for the threat of a two-ocean war, Ghormley had disappointed the chief by pessimistically reporting that the navy could not wage “an offensive naval war simultaneously in the Atlantic and the Pacific.” Now, faced with exactly that task, it was unclear whether Ghormley’s outlook had changed.6

  Apparently, Nimitz’s first choice for the South Pacific assignment had been Admiral William S. Pye, Kimmel’s temporary relief and still in command of Pacific battleships. To naval aviator King, Pye’s battleship affinity was a problem, and having no fondness for another possible candidate, Frank Jack Fletcher, King insisted on Ghormley. This was somewhat unusual in that King—rarely one to forgive past transgressions, particularly against himself personally—had been haughtily denied access by Ghormley to key British-American agreements upon assuming command of the Atlantic Fleet.7

  While King and Nimitz would ultimately work well together in pursuit of the final objective of victory, the Ghormley appointment was representative of the fact that they brought two very different styles to the table. King seized on Nimitz’s years with the Bureau of Navigation and thought him somewhat of a “fixer” because of it—ready to smooth things out rather than make waves as was King’s style. King “respected Nimitz’s judgment and solicited his advice” on personnel matters, but when Nimitz was content to give an officer the benefit of the doubt, King thought Nimitz was much too lenient. A common Nimitz expression was “That fellow is doing all right,” but to King that was damning with faint praise.8

  By contrast, the general public perception of King was that he demanded “nothing less than perfection of performance from his subordinates” and habitually reserved his infrequent pats on the back for officers who solved problems by attacking.9 King “could never understand why people in command were so touchy about kicking people out.”10

  Nimitz told King in their first conference that he wanted BuNav to take the lead in the assignment of Pacific Fleet officers, but behind the scenes and in between their subsequent conferences, Nimitz had frequent discussions about personnel options with BuNav chief Randall Jacobs, a longtime Nimitz friend.11 Publicly, Nimitz was frequently content to let BuNav and/or King make any controversial assignments and then blame either for any required dismissals. In Ghormley’s case, however, even the congenial Nimitz would give him very little rope.

  As much as King was doing to shape overall strategy, there was another admiral who was about to reenter the inner councils of American military policy. It is remarkable that out of the military names readily associated with World War II, two of the men who did the most to advance grand strategy are largely unknown to the general public—King and William D. Leahy. Nimitz and Halsey would come to overshadow them in the public’s eye because they held more glamorous, media-rich battlefield commands. But Leahy and King participated in the major strategic decisions that ultimately directed Nimitz and Halsey’s tactical roles.

  Leahy’s primary task as ambassador to Vichy France had sounded as simple as it was complex: make friends with Pétain and keep him and the few Frenchmen still loyal to him from completely selling out to the Germans. Despite the bleak global picture at the beginning of 1942, Leahy had been optimistic. The Allied forces were indeed spread thin, but the ambassador found that the prospects “for free people” were “much better at the beginning of this year than they were twelve months ago.” America and its allies, Leahy wrote, were “leagued together in a common interest” to defeat those nations engaged “in a barbarous war… imposing their will on inoffensive peoples.”12

  But Leahy was becoming increasingly frustrated with his role of coddling the mercurial French. “The barometric French opinion,” Leahy advised Roosevelt soon after Pearl Harbor, “has reacted to [America’s entry into the war] with a leaning over toward our side of the question but with reservations and with preparations to jump back on a moment’s notice.”13

  In mid-February 1942, Leahy delivered to Pétain what amounted to an ultimatum from Roosevelt. Vichy France must give official assurance to the United States that no military aid would be given to Germany or Italy and that French ships would not be used to move Axis troops and supplies between the continent and North Africa. Otherwise, Leahy would be recalled “for consultation,” diplomatic jargon that a change in relations was likely.

  When British bombers struck Renault and Ford automobile plants outside occupied Paris a few weeks later, Admiral Jean-Louis Darlan, the commander of the French fleet, reacted in a rage of Anglophobia. Appealing to Leahy’s membership in the shared naval fraternity, Darlan expressed outrage at Roosevelt’s demands and Great Britain’s attacks on what were now, in fact, German-controlled factories. Noting that his defeated country had been placed in “a painful situation,” Darlan did not refrain from attempting to bully Leahy. “I did not believe,” Darlan lectured the ambassador, �
��that the Government of a nation which owes its independence in great part to [France] would take advantage of this fact to treat it with scorn.”14

  Leahy responded immediately without consulting Roosevelt. Yes, they were brothers of the sea, Leahy told Darlan, but the United States was now “involved in a total war in defense of its existence as a free nation.” His government would prosecute that war aggressively “in order to secure a complete victory.” Under those circumstances, it was unreasonable to expect it “to look with complaisance upon the provision by a friendly nation of any assistance whatever to the military efforts of the enemy powers.” In other words, Leahy was telling Darlan, use the French fleet to aid Germany at your peril.15 When Roosevelt learned of Leahy’s reply, the president heartily concurred, calling it “absolutely perfect.” Still, he was not yet prepared to recall Leahy in the face of ever closer cooperation between Vichy France and Germany.16

  Roosevelt, while sympathetic to Leahy’s increasingly tenuous position, was swayed by the advice of the Joint Chiefs. Militarily, Marshall, King, and Arnold saw Vichy France and its North African colonies as the Allies’ “last bridgehead to Europe,” and they urged the president to “postpone as long as possible any evidence of change in our relations with France.” As for Leahy, who perhaps was thinking that he might be more useful in a direct military role, the chiefs recommended that he stay in France. FDR concurred, writing to Leahy, “To hold the fort as far as you are concerned is as important a military task as any other in these days.”17

  Leahy’s continued presence in Vichy was to have one terrible personal consequence. Bill and Louise remained very close. Theirs was a continuing love affair and Louise’s only rival for Bill’s attention was their granddaughter, little Louise, upon whom Bill doted. As a navy wife and hostess, Louise graciously and effectively supported Bill’s career and garnered much admiration and respect for her performance of the social roles required of diplomats’ wives. Fluent in French, she was particularly well received during this trying year in Vichy.

  On April 6, 1942, the day after Easter, Bill and Louise went for a two-hour drive in a wooded area outside Vichy and found the countryside “bursting into its spring activity.” White anemones were so thick that they carpeted the forest floor and Leahy hastened to pick a large bouquet for his wife. The next evening, Louise entered the local clinic for a hysterectomy that French doctors advised could not be postponed until her pending return to the United States. The procedure seemed to go well.

  Then, on April 16, upon hearing that the pro-German Pierre Laval was to become the new head of the Vichy government, Roosevelt cabled Leahy his recall and said he could return to the United States as soon as Louise was fit to travel. But things unraveled. On April 21, two days after the Laval government was officially announced, sixty-six-year-old Louise Harrington Leahy suffered an embolism while still recovering in the hospital. She died quite suddenly, with her husband at her bedside.

  Bill Leahy’s personal reserve was legendary. His penchant for avoiding in his diary all but the rarest glimmer of emotion would prove a frustration to his later biographers. But upon Louise’s death, his words of tribute to her and the expression of the despair he felt were as human and emotionally vulnerable as Leahy ever allowed himself to appear in print.

  “Louise was a great lady,” he wrote, “a remarkably successful Ambassadrice [sic], and an outstanding representative of America in Europe. She was accepted with enthusiasm and admired by all classes from members of the Royal family to the peasants who… all admired her understanding sympathy and innate goodness.” As for his own loss, her death “has left me not only crushed with sorrow, but permanently less than half efficient for any work the future may have in store for me and completely uninterested in the remaining future.”18

  “Dear Bill,” cabled FDR, “My heart goes out to you in the overwhelming loss which has come to you in a difficult and distant post of duty so far away from the legion of friends who loved Mrs. Leahy dearly.” But even these heartfelt wishes from a man Leahy had known almost thirty years and who was now president of the United States could not lift the deep gloom that hung over him.19

  Leahy came home, haggard and worn, to the house at 2168 Florida Avenue, N.W., in Washington that he and Louise had bought in 1927 upon his promotion to rear admiral. Living there alone this soon was out of the question, and he briefly settled on 19th Street, at the home of his daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Leahy, and her father, Dr. Robert S. Beale. Leahy’s son, William Harrington Leahy, by now a lieutenant commander, was in London as an assistant naval attaché to the American ambassador, and his and Elizabeth’s children, thirteen-year-old Louise and five-year-old Robert Beale Leahy, provided pleasant distractions.

  On June 3, Louise was buried in Arlington National Cemetery following an overflow service at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, where they had been members for many years. Leahy met with FDR two days later and was told to take a rest. Instead, he spent several miserable weeks in a dismal office at the State Department completing reports on the situation in Vichy. Then on Monday, July 6, Leahy answered the telephone in his office and heard a familiar voice asking him to come to the White House for a noontime conference.

  Upon Leahy’s arrival, Roosevelt told him that he would be recalled to active duty and appointed the president’s senior military adviser. FDR did not take the decision lightly, nor had he arrived at it quickly. For six months, America’s war machinery had haltingly labored to transition from small numbers and an almost country club pace—witness the Marshall-to-King memo regarding Pacific strategy—to the constant urgency of increasingly massive and complex global operations. Roosevelt was reluctant to relinquish or in any way diminish any of his powers as commander in chief, but it was increasingly clear that the information he received and the orders he gave had to pass through a common gatekeeper on whom he could rely.

  Heretofore, Marshall, King, and Arnold had jockeyed for time with the president as they needed decisions, but as the war pace picked up, they sought more frequent contact. Conversely, any military advice that the president desired required one or more chiefs to appear at the White House at all hours of the day. At that July 6 meeting with Leahy and at lunch the following day, Roosevelt outlined a position that would have daily contact with the three chiefs of staff and summarize reports flowing from them to the president. He would be the president’s personal representative on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. What was less clear at this point was how much command authority Leahy would carry, with presidential directives flowing in the opposite direction. “He did most of the talking,” Leahy recalled of FDR in these two sessions, adding perceptively, “He always did.”20

  Among those strongly supporting Leahy’s new role was George Marshall. The army chief of staff had been encouraging Roosevelt to appoint a chief of staff over all military services since the JCS first met formally in February 1942. Marshall had promoted this as a necessary step to focus unity of command and coordinate the three branches. In Marshall’s mind, it was definitely a military position.

  When Roosevelt had countered that he as president and commander in chief was in fact his own chief of staff, Marshall patiently explained to him “in great frankness that it was impossible to conceive of one man with all of his duties as president being also, in effect, the chief of staff of all the military services.” The presidency “was a superman job,” Marshall admitted, but he “didn’t think that even the exaggeration of the power of Superman would quite go far enough for this.”21

  Leahy visited with Marshall shortly after his return from France and heard him voice the same need for such a coordinating position. Not that Leahy lacked support from Roosevelt, but Marshall’s strong recommendation of him for the role may have encouraged Roosevelt to make the appointment. In fact, it was Marshall who talked with Leahy about what his exact title should be, deciding on “Chief of Staff to the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Army and Navy.” But by the time FDR met with Leahy on July 18 and
officially gave him the post, it was clear that Leahy was to be the president’s personal representative on the JCS first and foremost and, second, a neutral chairman arbitrating service rivalries and focusing military efforts.

  Secretary of War Stimson thought that Marshall’s proposal of Leahy as JCS chairman, rather than Marshall himself, was done with “great magnanimity and self-effacement,” but shrewd Marshall undoubtedly realized that King would resist his elevation. Naval officer Leahy, as a fourth member of the JCS and its chairman, would counter any and all claims King might have about the navy’s underrepresentation. “I thought,” Marshall correctly surmised, “the Navy couldn’t resist [Leahy], and from what I had learned I was willing to trust Leahy to be a neutral chairman.”22

  Leahy’s next stop was with King. The admiral had indeed been “holding out against the idea of a White House military adviser” primarily because he assumed it would be an army man and as such “detrimental to the interests of the Navy.” But when Marshall initially suggested Leahy to King, it put the matter in an entirely different light. “If he will take it,” King told Marshall, “it will be all right with me.” King now told Leahy the same thing and pledged his support. Years later, King told his biographer that he had “always liked Leahy” because he had taken such a firm stand against the Japanese after they sank the Panay.23

  Roosevelt announced Leahy’s recall to active duty and his appointment as chief of staff to the commander in chief at a press conference late on the afternoon of July 21. Leahy did not attend. If FDR meant to downplay the move, the press would have nothing of it. “Mr. President, can you tell us what the scope of Admiral Leahy’s position will be?” asked a reporter. The president repeated the title he had already announced. “Will he have the staff of the Army, Navy and Air also under him?” fired another. In jaunty FDR fashion, the president replied that he didn’t have “the foggiest idea,” and besides, the question had “nothing to do with the ‘price of eggs.’ ”