The Admirals

by Walter R. Borneman

  With such personalities at play, it was no surprise that sometimes the navy thought it was fighting MacArthur as much as the Japanese. Ernest J. King, himself of no small ego, questioned MacArthur’s views from the start, and while Admiral King enjoyed a momentary sigh of relief after the Battle of Midway, he was still livid at comments General MacArthur had made on the eve of the Battle of the Coral Sea one month before. MacArthur had warned newspapers that a major Japanese invasion fleet was bearing down on Port Moresby and possibly even Australia. Let them come, scolded King, but under no circumstances let the Japanese know we know they’re coming! To do so raised a huge flag that the Americans had succeeded in breaking the Japanese naval code.

  The entire issue of American intelligence being able to read the Japanese naval code with increasing precision was a heavily guarded secret. This effort had been under way prior to Pearl Harbor, and later the intelligence had greatly aided Nimitz in making fleet deployments at Coral Sea and in particular at Midway. King strongly preferred to say as little as possible about the outcomes of these battles—positive though they were—and even less about the navy’s ability to prepare for them by reading coded intercepts.

  But on the morning of Sunday, June 7, 1942—when few details of the Midway battle were known publicly—the Washington Times-Herald ran an article asserting that the Americans had known in advance that the Japanese were targeting Midway, as well as Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians. King was furious, but General Marshall was even more so. Marshall had already encouraged King to “treat the operation as a normal rather than an extraordinary effort” and to downplay for the press any spectacular intelligence success. After Marshall saw the Times-Herald on Sunday morning, he fired off a two-page memo to King, urging, “the way to handle this thing is for you to have an immediate press conference” and then practically scripting King’s remarks at the same. “I am strongly of the opinion that this should be done today,” Marshall admonished. King clearly agreed and called an unusual 5:00 p.m. Sunday press conference in his office to deal with the matter largely along the lines that Marshall had suggested.4

  Recognizing the goal of news outlets “to acquaint the public in detail with news of action with the enemy at the earliest practicable date,” King nonetheless professed his very firm feeling “that military considerations outweigh the satisfying of a very natural and proper curiosity.” Then, taking Marshall’s advice and downplaying the existence of any specific intelligence pipeline, the admiral launched into a folksy description worthy of FDR, saying that military intelligence was like the piecing together of a jigsaw puzzle and that after Coral Sea, the pieces just fell into place. “Looking at the map,” King opined, “anybody could see that among our various important outposts, Dutch Harbor and Midway offered [the Japanese] the best chance of an action… with some hope of success.” Thus, U.S. naval forces were providentially placed off Midway to counter the strike.

  But then King went off the record and zeroed in on the Washington Times-Herald. By publishing “an item which purported to be a ‘chapter and verse’ recital of the composition and functions of Japanese forces advancing toward Midway,” King lectured, the Times-Herald had compromised “a vital and secret source of information, which will henceforth be closed to us. The military consequences are so obvious that I do not need to dwell on them—nor to request you to be on your guard against, even inadvertently, being a party to any disclosure which will give ‘aid and comfort’ to the enemy.” The room was silent.

  King then opened the press conference to questions, acknowledging to nervous chuckles that he didn’t guarantee he would answer them. A number dealt with the Japanese thrust against Alaska, bombing Dutch Harbor and invading the islands of Kiska and Attu. King again tried to downplay what was in fact the first direct invasion of American territory in North America since the War of 1812. Not wanting to be diverted from the South Pacific, King assured the reporters that “even the seizure and occupation of Dutch Harbor [which did not happen] is not a determining factor in the conduct of the war… [and that] until they have got to Kodiak I feel they have done nothing momentous. Our pride will be hurt, yes, but we have enough to go around.”

  Then King repeated the doctrine of taking calculated risks with concentrated forces that Nimitz had just employed at Coral Sea and Midway. “Don’t forget the proposition,” the admiral told the reporters, “that the minute you try to be strong everywhere, you have only the men available—it means you will be weak everywhere.” Asked in conclusion if the admiral intended to hold regular press conferences, King replied, “No, indeed.”5

  What King did intend to do—even as Roosevelt sent him to Great Britain with Marshall to hammer out the broader Allied strategy—was to take one of those calculated risks in the South Pacific and jab back at the Japanese. On one level, this was in keeping with King’s announced policy of going on the offensive as rapidly as possible, but on another, the Allies were left with little choice if they were to preserve the West Coast–Australia lifeline that King had proclaimed as sacrosanct.

  The problem was that despite their setback at Coral Sea, the Japanese were consolidating their hold on the Solomon Islands. If they succeeded in establishing strong airfields there, this airpower would threaten the heart of the West Coast–Australia sea-lanes running past the New Hebrides and Ellice Islands and New Caledonia. Once fortified in the Solomons, the Japanese might well attack these outposts or even New Caledonia itself and disrupt if not sever the link. When the Japanese began to construct a seaplane base on the tiny island of Tulagi, just north of Guadalcanal, in May 1942, King knew that such action required an immediate Allied response.

  General MacArthur’s solution right after the Midway victory was to boast that if given the First Marine Division and two carriers with appropriate escorts, he would add three army divisions under his command and attack the main Japanese base at Rabaul in the Bismarck Archipelago, about a thousand miles west of Guadalcanal. King and Nimitz looked at the map and were appalled—not so much by MacArthur’s audacity, but by his total lack of regard for what might happen to the navy’s precious few carriers. They would be put into the center of poorly charted, reef-strewn waters that were surrounded by a complex of Japanese bases, from which would come waves upon waves of land-based aircraft.

  A strike at Rabaul was clearly premature, and King advocated approaching the stronghold through a series of island conquests starting in the Solomons. Not only would this begin an advance on Rabaul and launch King’s cherished offensive strategy, but most important to the immediate situation, it would stop the Japanese sweep through the Solomons and safeguard the lifeline to Australia.

  King argued that the new seaplane base at Tulagi had to be captured in a matter of weeks. But General Marshall and the army didn’t concur and wanted to postpone any invasion of the Solomons three to four months, “when we would be in a better situation.” King snorted and supposedly replied, “If we were to wait until that time, every exact button of their gaiters would be buttoned up.”6

  So as soon as the Midway outcome became clear, King pushed ahead with his plan, asking Marshall, “When will the time be ripe since we have just defeated a major part of the ‘enemy’s’ fleet?” Nimitz, who was always the loyal subordinate whenever King issued a direct order, professed eagerness to get on with it. By contrast, Vice Admiral Robert L. Ghormley, who had immediate command of the South Pacific Area, pleaded for “more time and more ships, planes, and troops and also supplies and munitions, etc. just as the J.C.S. had,” which, King recalled, “I didn’t like.”7

  Part of Marshall’s reluctance was that unlike King with Nimitz, Marshall did not have a willing subordinate in that part of the world. George Marshall had been only a long-term colonel when Douglas MacArthur had served as army chief of staff during the 1930s. Thanks to MacArthur’s own press releases, the public sang his praises and Marshall more often than not cajoled MacArthur in the desired direction rather than issued him direct orders. Now MacArthur sto
rmed to Marshall that the navy was making every effort to subordinate the army’s role in the Pacific. Never mind Rabaul; if there was to be an invasion of the Solomons, he, Douglas MacArthur, must be in command of it.

  One can almost hear the hawklike Ernie King laugh in reply. There was no way, short of the eternal fires, that King was going to turn over command of major naval vessels and marines to MacArthur—or any other soldier—particularly in the first major offensive of the war. Marshall and MacArthur further complicated matters by evidencing in memos their shortcomings in understanding command and control for ship deployments and amphibious operations.

  King had agreed to the wisdom of an army officer having supreme command (“unity of command” was the catchphrase) of theater operations in Europe, where most of the fighting was to be on land. After some heated discussions, Marshall was forced to acknowledge that there was little he could do but acquiesce to the reverse in the South Pacific, where so many of the operations were to be on or near water. King later described these discussions as having “to ‘educate’ the Army people.”8

  When MacArthur squinted at the line along 160° east longitude dividing MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific Area from Ghormley’s South Pacific Area and found it bisecting Guadalcanal, he still insisted on command of any operation there. King and Marshall solved that problem by simply moving the dividing line west 1 degree of longitude (about seventy miles near the equator) and left Guadalcanal entirely in Ghormley’s theater of operations. (MacArthur would soon have his hands full, as contemporaneous with their move to secure Guadalcanal, the Japanese also launched an overland attack on Port Moresby from Buna, across the rugged Owen Stanley Range.)

  With the row over Guadalcanal settled, King hurried to San Francisco to meet with Nimitz to review the details of the planned operation. Nimitz almost didn’t get there. Leaving Pearl Harbor with his immediate aides, he flew east on a four-engine flying boat. This airplane was a one-of-a-kind prototype built by Sikorsky in 1935 to win a navy contract that eventually went to Consolidated Aircraft for the PB2Y Coronado. The Sikorsky XPBS-1 could accommodate forty passengers on short hops, but it was outfitted with sixteen bunks for the 2,500-mile, 15-hour trip—at about 160 miles per hour—between Honolulu and Naval Air Station Alameda, just north of San Francisco.

  As the plane made its approach into Alameda, Nimitz and Captain Lynde D. McCormick were ready in their blues for the reception, but busy playing a last game of cribbage. Commander Preston V. Mercer, the admiral’s flag secretary, sat by the window cradling an all-important briefcase containing the after-action report from the Battle of Midway for King. Others in the cabin were relief pilots, crew members, and an officer bumming a ride to a new stateside assignment. As the plane neared its splashdown, Mercer suddenly mumbled, “Oh-oh!”

  The big flying boat hit the water a little down in the nose, but the cause of Mercer’s concern was debris floating in the landing area. The plane immediately struck a piling the size of a telegraph pole. Its bow shot skyward, the plane flipped over onto its back, and the fuselage cracked in half. As passengers scrambled out a freight hatch onto what moments before had been the underside of a wing, Mercer anxiously asked Nimitz his condition. “I’m all right,” muttered the admiral, “but for God’s sake save that briefcase.”

  McCormick and the other passengers weren’t as lucky. McCormick suffered head lacerations and two cracked vertebrae. Everyone else had at least one broken bone, and the copilot, twenty-nine-year-old Lieutenant Thomas M. Roscoe of Oakland, California, was killed. As crash boats and navy corpsmen arrived, Nimitz, despite his share of bumps and bruises, insisted on remaining on the sinking wing while there were still men inside the plane. Each time a corpsman draped a blanket around the admiral’s shoulders, he promptly removed it and wrapped it around an injured man.

  Concerned for those around him, Nimitz kept avoiding the hands that attempted to steer him off the wing and into a crash boat. Finally, an eighteen-year-old seaman second class lost patience with the white-haired gentleman, and knowing neither his identity nor his rank, he shouted out, “Commander, if you would only get the hell out of the way, maybe we could get something done around here.” Nimitz merely nodded and finally clambered into the waiting boat.

  Draped with a blanket that this time stayed around his shoulders, Nimitz stood up to survey the scene as the boat backed away from the wreckage. “Sit down, you!” yelled the angry coxswain. Nimitz again obeyed, and in doing so caused the blanket to fall, revealing his uniform sleeve. Seeing the rows of gold braid, the coxswain tried to stammer an apology, but Nimitz cut him short. “Stick to your guns, sailor,” the four-star admiral replied. “You were quite right.”9

  Reportedly, a strong tailwind had sped the airplane along to arrive well ahead of schedule, and the naval air station crew had been lax in monitoring the landing zone. Nimitz took the accident in stride and even got to spend a couple of days recuperating with Catherine, who was living in temporary quarters—as were so many military wives—at the Hotel Durant in Berkeley.

  King, who had almost lost his valued commander in chief, Pacific, took a different view. He circulated a memo to all commands, demanding more vigilance in the “Policing of Seaplane Landing and Take-off Areas.” King included paragraphs from the official report and concluded that the extracts, “representing as they do a case of ‘it did happen here’ are forwarded as being illustrative of what may be expected when those duties are neglected.”10

  Finally, after King’s delays with Marshall and Nimitz’s near-disaster landing, the two admirals met at the St. Francis hotel for their second face-to-face meeting of the war. There was much to discuss about the Solomons operation, but King was his usual expansive self in looking far ahead. He sketched out the long-range, next phase of operations against Japan by outlining an advance directly west across the Central Pacific via Truk, Guam, and Saipan once the initial drive through the Solomons and New Guinea had secured the southern flank. Later, MacArthur would have plenty to say about this strategy.

  But meanwhile, King and Nimitz had received intelligence reports that Japanese construction battalions had landed on Guadalcanal and were busy constructing an airfield. King now ordered that both Tulagi and Guadalcanal had to be captured before any Japanese airfield became operational on the latter—quite possibly within the month.

  The clock was ticking, and King picked an assault date of no later than August 1, 1942. Everything was in short supply. There was a frantic rush of men and materiel, coordination between ship and shore commands was still in its infancy, and even the veteran First Marine Division had yet to make an amphibious landing under enemy fire. But in all instances, it was a situation where the best training might well come by doing the real thing.

  Ostensibly, Vice Admiral Ghormley was in overall command of the operation as commander in chief, South Pacific. With Bill Halsey still in Virginia recuperating from dermatitis, Frank Jack Fletcher, newly promoted to vice admiral, would command three carrier task forces centered around Enterprise, indefatigable as always; Wasp, newly arrived from the Atlantic; and Saratoga, back in action after torpedo damage the previous January. Nimitz had finally succeeded in getting Fletcher his third star despite King’s continued ambivalence.

  Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, an attendee at the King-Nimitz conference and recently King’s chief of the War Plans Division, was to command the amphibious forces. Turner had a tough-as-nails reputation and in temperament usually deserved his nickname “Terrible.” Marine Major General Alexander Archer “Archie” Vandegrift led the reinforced First Marine Division and would assume command of the ground forces.

  A week after the King-Nimitz conference, Ghormley flew from his temporary headquarters in Auckland, New Zealand, to confer with General MacArthur in Australia and coordinate MacArthur’s operations in defense of Port Moresby with the attack on the Solomons. Not much came of the meeting except for Ghormley to get a case of “the slows” from MacArthur. MacArthur had talked brashly
about attacking the stronghold of Rabaul, but now he wanted to delay the Guadalcanal and Tulagi landings—code-named Watchtower—until greater Allied strength could be marshaled.

  When King heard this, his opinion of MacArthur sank lower, taking Ghormley’s down a notch with it. Only two weeks earlier, MacArthur had been all for charging into Rabaul, King raved to Marshall, but now, when “confronted with the concrete aspects of the task, he… feels he not only cannot undertake this extended operation [Rabaul] but not even the Tulagi operation.” King’s only concession was begrudgingly to grant Ghormley a one-week reprieve and move D-day back one week to August 7.11

  So, on this new schedule, the first of sixteen thousand marines splashed ashore to moderate resistance on Tulagi and initial light resistance on Guadalcanal, succeeding in capturing the uncompleted airfield, soon renamed Henderson Field, on D-day plus one. Fletcher’s three carrier groups paraded south of the island, providing air cover. But by late afternoon of that same day, August 8, Fletcher asked Ghormley for permission to withdraw his carriers farther southward, citing a need to refuel and concerns about a presumed Japanese counterattack. Ghormley replied in the affirmative very early on the morning of August 9, and at 4:30 a.m., Fletcher led his carriers southward toward a refueling rendezvous.

  Turner, Vandegrift, and many sailors and marines left on or near the Guadalcanal beachhead would later claim that Fletcher deserted them. In fact, Fletcher had told Turner and Ghormley while planning the operation that he intended to remain on station off Guadalcanal with his carriers only two to three days after the landings. Nimitz, too, in the initial planning of the invasion after his early July meeting with King, had envisioned only “about three days” of close-in carrier support off Guadalcanal.12

  A large part of the angst at Guadalcanal came from an unexpected and ferocious battle between cruisers and destroyers that occurred in the wee hours of August 9 around Savo Island, at the western entrance to the sound between Tulagi and Guadalcanal. A substantial force of one Australian and four American heavy cruisers and four destroyers had been positioned to plug the approaches to what became known as Ironbottom Sound in order to protect the transports and cargo ships unloading at the beachheads.