The Admirals
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14. Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, pp. 602–3.
15. WDL/Diary, ca. May 4, 1898; capture of Philadelphia and Boston rumor in Robinson Diary, p. 18.
16. “Dewey’s Report of the Battle of Manila Bay,” in The Library of Historic Characters and Famous Events, vol. 12 (Boston: J. B. Millet, 1907), p. 241.
17. “George Dewey,” in ibid., p. 235.
18. David McCullough, The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870–1914 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977), pp. 254–255, 257.
19. WDL/Diary, July 3, 1898.
20. “Destruction of Cervera’s Fleet,” in The Library of Historic Characters, pp. 259–266; WDL/Diary, July 3, 1898.
21. Adams, Witness to Power, p. 17.
Chapter 2: King
1. Denis and Peggy Warner, The Tide at Sunrise: A History of the Russo-Japanese War, 1904–1905 (New York: Charterhouse, 1974), pp. 15, 17–19. Two new, 7,000-ton cruisers, originally built in England for Argentina, subsequently refused by Russia and then secretly purchased by Japanese agents had arrived in Japanese hands only hours before the Port Arthur attack.
2. Ernest J. King and Walter Muir Whitehill, Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record (New York: Norton, 1952), p. 51.
3. Thomas B. Buell, Master of Sea Power: A Biography of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King (Boston: Little, Brown, 1980), pp. 3–8; “It’s true” and “If I didn’t,” p. 4; King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 9–15.
4. Buell, Master of Sea Power, pp. 8–9; King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 18–21, “Don’t you know,” p. 21.
5. King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 21–23; “action off Havana,” p. 23; Buell, Master of Sea Power, pp. 11–12.
6. King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 26–32; “the most beautiful,” Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 12; nicknames, “A man so various,” “Hops,” and “Temper?,” Lucky Bag, vol. 8, 1901, p. 35 (“A man so various” is adapted from John Dryden’s 1681 poem “Absalom and Achitophel,” part 1, lines 545–46); as examples of nicknames continuing throughout one’s naval career, see “Dear Dolly,” Harry E. Yarnell to King, January 4, 1942, EJK/LC, Box 16 and an exchange of “Dear Betty” and “Dear Rey” letters during World War II between Harold R. Stark and King, EJK/LC, Box 15.
7. King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 35–38, 49–52; Buell, Master of Sea Power, pp. 20–24; “Ensign King is,” p. 24.
8. Warner, The Tide at Sunrise, pp. 528–56; Mukden casualty figures, p. 513.
9. King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 53–54, 61.
Chapter 3: Halsey
1. Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography (New York: Scribner’s, 1923), p. 558.
2. William F. Halsey and J. Bryan III, Admiral Halsey’s Story (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1947); “bombarded her,” p. 16; “We needed the stretches,” p. 11.
3. Ibid., pp. 2–5; “big, violent men,” p. 2; “I… have always” and “I didn’t learn much,” p. 4; “camped in McKinley’s,” p. 5; E. B. Potter, Bull Halsey (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1985), pp. 19–27.
4. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, pp. 5–8; “Sir, have you” and “Yes, sir,” p. 6; “I wish you,” p. 7; “But as usual,” p. 8.
5. Lucky Bag, vol. 9 (1904), pp. 41, 149.
6. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 9.
7. Ibid., pp. 9–10.
8. “that the Pacific was,” Roosevelt, An Autobiography, p. 548; “the two American achievements,” pp. 549–50.
9. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, pp. 11–14; Potter, Halsey, pp. 90–96. Two battleships of the original Great White Fleet, Maine and Alabama, were relieved by Nebraska and Wisconsin on the West Coast for the remainder of the circumnavigation.
Chapter 4: Nimitz
1. E. B. Potter, Nimitz (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1976), pp. 60–61.
2. Ibid., pp. 22–30; “Take English, son,” Dede W. Casad and Frank A. Driscoll, Chester W. Nimitz: Admiral of the Hills (Austin, Tex.: Eakin Press, 1983), pp. 3–4. When Anna Nimitz lay dying in 1924, Chester rushed to her side from maneuvers in the Pacific and arrived in time to hear her last conscious words: “I knew my Valentine boy would come to see me” (Potter, Nimitz, p. 28).
3. Potter, Nimitz, pp. 49–50. Church went on to become a rear admiral and the uncle of U.S. senator Frank Church. Both his son and grandson were Annapolis graduates; the latter, Albert Thomas Church III, retired as a vice admiral in 2005.
4. Lucky Bag, vol. 12, 1905, pp. 76, 167, 183.
5. Potter, Nimitz, p. 52.
6. Edgar Stanton Maclay, A History of the United States Navy from 1775 to 1901, vol. 3 (New York: D. Appleton, 1901), p. 364.
7. Potter, Nimitz, p. 53.
8. “mixer of famous punches,” Lucky Bag, vol. 12, 1905, p. 76; Nimitz recounted this story almost sixty years later in a letter to a midshipman collecting academy anecdotes for a term paper (Nimitz to Williamson, January 23, 1962, CWN/NHHC, Series 13, Folder 120).
9. Potter, Nimitz, pp. 50n, 55–56.
10. Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex (New York: Random House, 2001), pp. 397–400.
11. Potter, Nimitz, pp. 56–57.
12. Ibid., pp. 58–59, 61; “I can practice,” p. 58; “Your clothes will,” p. 59; “On that black night,” p. 61.
13. Ibid., pp. 61–62; “culpable inefficiency,” p. 61; “made the trip” and “a cross between,” p. 62.
Chapter 5: First Commands
1. “the most pleasant,” WDL/Diary, undated, 1904; Adams, Witness to Power, pp. 21–23.
2. WDL/Diary, June 10, 1905.
3. Ibid., August 11, 1910.
4. Ibid., January 17, 1910.
5. Ibid., January 16, 1911.
6. Ibid., November 15, 1911.
7. Ibid., October 10, 1911.
8. King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 63–64.
9. Buell, Master of Sea Power, pp. 26, 34–37.
10. Ernest J. King, “Some Ideas About Organization on Board Ship,” United States Naval Institute Proceedings 35, no. 1 (March 1909), pp. 1–35; “clinging to things,” p. 2.
11. Buell, Master of Sea Power, pp. 38–41; “would not lead,” p. 38; King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 76–83; “Young man, don’t you,” p. 83.
12. King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 84–86.
13. Ibid., pp. 89–90.
14. “Do you realize,” Potter, Halsey, p. 98; Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, pp. 15–16.
15. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, pp. 17–18.
16. H. W. Brands, Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (New York: Doubleday, 2008), pp. 75–76.
17. “operated in the Atlantic,” WDL/Diary, undated, 1915; “an appreciation of?” and “there developed,” William D. Leahy, I Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman Based on His Notes and Diaries Made at the Time (New York: Whittlesey House, 1950), p. 3.
18. “Prohibition in the Navy: General Order 99, 1 June, 1914,” Department of the Navy, Naval History and Heritage Command, http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq59-11.htm, accessed August 22, 2009; New York Times, April 6, 1914. There is anecdotal evidence that the phrase “cup of joe” originated with Josephus Daniels’s alcohol ban, which left coffee the most potent shipboard stimulant.
Chapter 6: Dress Rehearsal
1. Potter, Nimitz, p. 55; “a cross between,” p. 62; “Pitt is the greatest,” Clay Blair, Jr., Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1975), p. 4. Pitt was intrigued by a design promoted by Robert Fulton, who soon turned his attention to steamboats.
2. Roosevelt to Charles Joseph Bonaparte, August 28, 1905, in The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, vol. 4, ed. Elting E. Morison (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951), pp. 1323–25.
3. Blair, Silent Victory, vol. 1, pp. 5, 9–10, 12, 14.
4. Potter, Nimitz, p. 116.
5. Ibid., p. 117.
6. C. W. Nimitz, “Military Value and Tactics of Modern Submarines,” United States
Naval Institute Proceedings, 38, no. 4 (December 1912), pp. 1193–1211, “The steady development,” p. 1198; “the same cruising,” p. 1196; “accompany a sea-keeping,” p. 1198; “drop numerous poles,” p. 1209; “taken down ready,” p. 1194.
7. Potter, Nimitz, pp. 119, 124–126.
8. Ibid., pp. 126–127.
9. Blair, Silent Victory, vol. 1, pp. 15–22; “The submarine is” and “absolute and irremediable,” p. 21; E. B. Potter, ed., The United States and World Sea Power (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1955), pp. 551–552; “If the present rate,” Burton J. Hendrick, The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page, 1925), p. 396.
10. Potter, Nimitz, p. 129.
11. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, pp. 24–33; “a hunch too strong,” p. 24; “nursing midshipmen,” p. 26; “makee-learn,” p. 27; “First egg,” p. 31; “had the time” and “proud as a dog,” p. 33.
12. King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 99, 101, 116–121. For the best account of the naval war between Great Britain and Germany, see Robert K. Massie, Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea (New York: Ballantine, 2003).
13. King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 144–145; “was more decisive,” p. 145; “a proper realization” p. 144; “had an exceptionally” and “due performance,” “Remarks Delivered December 3, 1936, to Los Angeles American Legion Post No. 8 in Honor of Admiral Mayo’s 80th Birthday,” EJK/LC, Box 4.
14. Blair, Silent Victory, vol. 1, pp. 22–24; Potter, Nimitz, pp. 129–131; Potter, Sea Power, p. 559.
Chapter 7: Battleships
1. Adams, Witness to Power, pp. 33–37.
2. Potter, Sea Power, pp. 561–562; Massie, Castles of Steel, pp. 786–788.
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Shall We Trust Japan?” Asia: The American Magazine on the Orient 23, no. 7 (July 1923), p. 475; Potter, Sea Power, pp. 563–567.
4. Adams, Witness to Power, pp. 38, 40.
5. “the improbability” and “knew of no,” New York Times, January 30, 1921.
6. Alfred F. Hurley, Billy Mitchell: Crusader for Air Power (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975), pp. 60-61, 65-68; “Mitchell had sunk,” p. 68.
7. WDL/Diary, June 1921.
8. Ibid., September 1921.
9. Adams, Witness to Power, pp. 45–47; “There was something,” WDL/Diary, March 22, 1923.
10. Adams, Witness to Power, p. 48.
11. WDL/Diary, February 3, 1924. See chapter 23, note 11, for how Leahy’s views of Wilson changed.
12. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 42.
13. Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1987), p. 46.
14. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 42.
15. “boozy picnics,” Potter, Halsey, p. 118. A host of secondary sources refer to Spruance as “Ray Spruance,” but there is little primary evidence to support the nickname. Indeed, Spruance signed letters even to his close associates as “Raymond A. Spruance.” Nimitz, who arguably became as close to Spruance as anyone in the navy, addressed letters to “Dear Raymond” as late as 1946. See, for example, Nimitz to Spruance, June 24, 1944, and March 7, 1946, RAS/NHHC, Box 1, Folder S.
16. “What do you intend,” Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, pp. 44–46; “In a minute,” Potter, Halsey, p. 117.
Chapter 8: Submarines
1. Blair, Silent Victory, vol. 1, pp. 24, 26.
2. Nimitz to Anna Nimitz, November 18, 1919, in Potter, Nimitz, p. 132.
3. “Pearl Harbor: Its Origin and Administrative History Through World War II,” Department of the Navy, Naval History and Heritage Command, http://www.history.navy.mil/docs/wwii/pearl/hawaii-2.htm; “Development of the Naval Establishment in Hawaii,” Department of the Navy, Naval History and Heritage Command, http://www.history.navy.mil/docs/wwii/pearl/hawaii-3.htm, both accessed October 29, 2009.
4. Potter, Nimitz, pp. 133–34.
5. Stuart S. Murray, “Building the Submarine Base at Pearl Harbor,” in Submarine Stories: Recollections from the Diesel Boats, ed. Paul Stillwell (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2007), p. 41.
6. Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 57.
7. Ernest J. King et al., “Report and Recommendations of a Board Appointed by the Bureau of Navigation Regarding the Instruction and Training of Line Officers,” United States Naval Institute Proceedings 46, no. 210 (August 1920), pp. 1265–92.
8. King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 152–53, 159.
9. Buell, Master of Sea Power, pp. 62–63. “a captain among” and “as usual, I had,” p. 62; “Why are you underway,” p. 63.
10. Ibid., p. 65.
11. King to Editor of Waterbury Herald, October 19, 1925, EJK/LC, Box 3.
12. Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 71.
13. “Daddy, wasn’t it,” King, Fleet Admiral King, p. 171; “rookies,” New York Times, September 29, 1925; “All hands here,” King to C. S. Freeman, October 2, 1925, EJK/LC, Box 3; “Men cling,” New York Times, October 1, 1925.
14. Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 67.
15. King to Leahy, February 26, 1926, EJK/LC, Box 3.
16. King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 173–185; Ernest J. King, “Salvaging U.S.S. S-51,” United States Naval Institute Proceedings 53, no. 2 (February 1927), pp. 137–152.
Chapter 9: Aircraft Carriers
1. Clément Ader, Military Aviation, ed. and trans. Lee Kennett (Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: Air University Press, 2003), p. 41.
2. “Eugene Ely’s Flight from USS Birmingham, 14 November 1910,” Department of the Navy, Naval History and Heritage Command, http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/ev-1910s/ev-1910/ely-birm.htm; “Eugene Ely’s Flight to USS Pennsylvania, 18 January 1911,” Department of the Navy, Naval History and Heritage Command, http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/ev-1910s/ev-1911/ely-pa.htm, both accessed October 6, 2009. Tragically, Eugene Ely was killed nine months later while flying in an air show in Georgia.
3. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 49.
4. “USS Langley (CV 1),” United States Navy, http://www.navy.mil/navydata/navy_legacy_hr.asp?id=10, accessed October 6, 2009.
5. “USS Lexington (CV 2),” http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/carriers/histories/cv02-lexington/cv02-lexington.html; “USS Saratoga (CV 3),” http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/carriers/histories/cv03-saratoga/cv03-saratoga.html, both accessed October 6, 2009. These ships followed the U.S. Navy’s custom of naming ships after predecessors, which in these cases had been initially named after Revolutionary War battles. This tendency toward multiple ships with the same name—albeit never at the same time—means that attention must be paid to the corresponding ship number so as not to confuse Lexington (CV-2) with the later Lexington (CV-16). As early as 1819, Congress gave the secretary of the navy the responsibility of assigning ship names. There was no rigid convention, although principal ships were generally named after states and lesser ships after rivers and towns. As new battleship construction surged after the Spanish-American War, nonbattleships with state names—such as the cruiser Pennsylvania—were renamed to make battleship names the exclusive province of the states.
With battleship names resolved, this led to a general convention that called for naming cruisers for cities (Birmingham, Houston, Nashville), destroyers for American naval heroes (Yarnall, Aaron Ward), and oilers for rivers (Nimitz’s Maumee). Amateur ornithologist Franklin D. Roosevelt as assistant secretary of the navy even bestowed bird names on a class of minesweepers (Falcon, Tanager).
Submarines were somewhat of an exception, having first been named for fish, such as Nimitz’s Snapper and Skipjack, then going through a long line of alphabet boats to delineate various classes, such as S-51; and finally reverting to fish names for the majority of the World War II boats. Starting with Lexington and Saratoga, early aircraft carriers were given the names of prior warships and, later, more recent battles. This methodology had a practical side: when a captain
was ordered to join up with Houston, he immediately knew it was a cruiser.
These naming conventions survived World War II but since then have largely disintegrated, much to the chagrin of many old navy hands. Carriers began to be named after individuals, first with the Midway-class Franklin D. Roosevelt and then with the lead ship of the Forrestal class, named after Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal. The John F. Kennedy inaugurated the presidents series of carrier names, although modern carriers also honor an admiral (Nimitz), a senator (John C. Stennis), and a congressman (Carl Vinson). With no more battleships to be commissioned, state names were assigned to submarines, although one submarine was named for a president (Jimmy Carter) and one president’s name moved from a decommissioned sub to a carrier (George Washington). For more information on ship nomenclature, see “Ship Naming in the United States Navy,” Department of the Navy, Naval History and Heritage Command, http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq63-1.htm and “Naming Ships,” Federation of American Scientists, Military Analysis Network, http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/names.htm.
6. Potter, Nimitz, pp. 136–141; “one of the truly important,” p. 136; “as laying the groundwork,” p. 141.
7. William F. Trimble, Admiral William A. Moffett: Architect of Naval Aviation (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994), p. 18.
8. King to Kurtz, May 13, 1926, EJK/LC, Box 3.
9. Buell, Master of Sea Power, pp. 72–76; “It seemed to me,” p. 72; “badgered the base commander” and “the damnedest party man,” p. 74; King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 186–90.