11. Press release, March 26, 1942, EJK/LC, Box 23.
12. King, Fleet Admiral King, p. 321.
13. Marshall to King, August 15, 1941, GCM/LC, Reel 21.
14. Eisenhower, January 5, 1942, in Eisenhower Diaries, p. 40.
15. Ibid., February 23, 1942, p. 49.
16. Ibid., March 10, 1942, pp. 50, 403n.
17. Ibid., March 14, 1942, p. 51.
18. Dwight D. Eisenhower, At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967), p. 252.
19. Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, 1939–1942 (New York: Viking, 1966), p. 372.
20. Eisenhower, January 19, 1942, in Eisenhower Diaries, p. 44.
21. Manchester, American Caesar, p. 152.
22. Pogue, Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, p. 234.
23. WDL/Diary, March 18, 1942. Leahy’s opinion may have been colored by his esteem for the general’s nephew, Douglas MacArthur II, who was serving under him in the Vichy embassy.
24. Eisenhower, February 23, 1942, in Eisenhower Diaries, p. 49.
25. Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Education of a General, 1880–1939 (New York: Viking, 1963), p. 282; Pogue, Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, p. 249.
26. Eisenhower, March 19, 1942, in Eisenhower Diaries, p. 51.
27. King to Reynolds, March 19, 1952, EJK/LC, Box 18.
28. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, pp. 101–4; Potter, Halsey, pp. 58–62.
29. King, Fleet Admiral King, p. 376; King to Reynolds, March 25, 1952, EJK/LC, Box 18, “from our new secret base,” Franklin D. Roosevelt, April 21, 1942, in Complete Presidential Press Conferences of Franklin D. Roosevelt, vols. 19–20, 1942 (New York: Da Capo Press, 1972), p. 292.
30. John B. Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2006), p. 124.
31. Ibid., pp. 125–29.
32. Potter, Nimitz, pp. 69–70.
33. Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, p. 168.
34. Ibid., p. 208.
35. Ibid., pp. 199–200. A great many congratulatory messages flew among the major military commanders. While many were sincere, most had underlying political or ego-stroking purposes as well. MacArthur, whose ego was the intended recipient of many such communications, was one of the few commanders who apparently took them to heart and quoted them at length in his autobiography.
36. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 105.
37. Potter, Nimitz, p. 78. One might well argue that the final flaw in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had been not to capture Midway at the outset of the war as its main force retired westward from Hawaii.
38. Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, pp. 211–12, 216–17. After the fact, King remembered the situation quite differently in his memoirs: “In King’s view the important thing was Midway, for he felt that the Japanese could not do everything at once. Consequently, he directed Nimitz to bring his ships away from their stations in the South Pacific… and deploy them for the defense of Hawaii and Midway” (King, Fleet Admiral King, p. 379).
39. Buell, Master of Sea Power, pp. 201–2; “to employ,” COMINCH to CINCPAC, May 17, 1942, no. 2220, Nimitz “Gray Book,” p. 490, Naval History and Heritage Command, or online at http://www.ibiblio.org/anrs/docs/D/D7/nimitz_graybook5.pdf, accessed February 17, 2011. It helped their relationship, of course, that Nimitz was proved right at Midway.
40. Potter, Halsey, p. 77.
41. Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, p. 228.
42. Ibid., p. 229.
43. Ibid., pp. 219–21, 237–39. See also Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully, Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2005), pp. 43–45, for an analysis of Japanese plans to attack both Midway and Dutch Harbor simultaneously. When the Midway attack fell behind a day and didn’t occur on June 3, Nimitz momentarily worried that his intelligence was wrong.
44. Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword, pp. 417–20. Relying heavily on Japanese records, this is a revision of traditional casualty figures on the Japanese side.
45. Walter Lord, Incredible Victory (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), p. 286.
46. King, Fleet Admiral King, p. 380.
47. Time, June 15, 1942, p. 17.
48. Spruance to Nimitz, May 15, 1957, RAS/NHHC, Box 1.
49. Spruance to Nimitz, June 8, 1942, RAS/NHHC, Box 3. Spruance closed by telling Nimitz, “I appreciate more than I can tell you the fact that you had sufficient confidence in me to let me take this fine Task Force to sea during this critical period. It has been a pleasure to have such a well trained fighting force to throw against the enemy.”
50. Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, pp. 114, 293. See also p. 277 for the role Fletcher’s relinquishment of overall command played in assessments of his career and pp. 508–12 for Spruance’s continuing assertions of Fletcher’s role.
51. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, pp. 106–7.
Chapter 15: Deciding the Course
1. Buell, Master of Sea Power, pp. 188–89.
2. King to Roosevelt, memorandum, March 5, 1942, “Safe Files,” Box 3, King Folder, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, N.Y.
3. Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 189.
4. Pogue, Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, pp. 254–55.
5. Buell, Master of Sea Power, pp. 191–92.
6. Robert William Love, Jr., The Chiefs of Naval Operations (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1980), p. 113.
7. Potter, Nimitz, p. 45; Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 137. King, in fact, tried to use Ghormley’s appointment as an excuse to put Fletcher ashore as temporary COMSOPAC prior to Ghormley arriving in the South Pacific. This would have removed Fletcher from an operational command—something Nimitz forcefully and successfully opposed at this point (Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, p. 118). In a communication with the author, John Lundstrom speculated that part of King’s insistence on Ghormley came from FDR, who reportedly abhorred Pye.
8. Buell, Master of Sea Power, pp. 197–98, 576.
9. Time, March 16, 1942, p. 59.
10. Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 197.
11. King/Nimitz Pacific Conferences, minutes, April 25, 1942, NRS 1972-22, Department of the Navy, Naval History and Heritage Command.
12. WDL/Diary, January 1, 1942.
13. Leahy to FDR, insert in WDL/Diary, December 22, 1941.
14. Darlan to Leahy, March 8, 1942, in Leahy, I Was There, pp. 480–81.
15. Leahy to Darlan, March 9, 1942, in Leahy, I Was There, pp. 481–82.
16. Roosevelt to Leahy, April 3, 1942, in Leahy, I Was There, p. 482.
17. FDR to Leahy, insert in WDL/Diary, undated but ca. March 1, 1942. In this letter, FDR used the phrase “United Nations” in capital letters to refer to the Allies, one of its earliest uses.
18. WDL/Diary, April 6, April 7, and April 21, 1942.
19. FDR to Leahy, insert in WDL/Diary, April 21, 1942.
20. Leahy, I Was There, p. 96.
21. Pogue, Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, p. 299.
22. Ibid., pp. 298–99. Marshall’s regard for Leahy was genuine. As Leahy departed for Vichy, Marshall wrote, “The sacrifice you make and the integrity of purpose you carry to your duties merit genuine public appreciation, and support. You have mine, in full measure,” Marshall to Leahy, December 23, 1940, GCM/LC, Reel 22).
23. Leahy, I Was There, p. 96; “always liked Leahy,” Whitehill interview with King, August 27, 1950, EJK/NHC/NWC, Box 7, File Folder 19.
24. Roosevelt, July 21, 1942, in Complete Presidential Press Conferences, vol. 20, pp. 14–19. Newspapermen knew the term “legman” as one who did the digging and occasional dirty work for those getting their names in the bylines.
25. Leahy, I Was There, p. 97.
26. New York Herald Tribune, July 22, 1942, p. 1.
27. Time, August 3, 1942, p. 15.
28. Leahy, I Was There, p. 97; Paul L
. Miles, Jr., “American Strategy in World War II: The Role of William D. Leahy,” unpublished Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1999, p. 78n.
29. New York Herald Tribune, July 23, 1942.
30. Washington Post, July 23, 1942.
31. FDR to Leahy, June 26, 1941, in F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, 1928–1945, vol. 2, ed. Elliott Roosevelt (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1950), p. 1177.
32. King to Roosevelt, memorandum, March 5, 1942.
33. Pogue, Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, p. 340, quoting Marshall and King to Roosevelt, July 10, 1942. In 1956, well after the fact, Marshall claimed it was a bluff, but there is ample evidence to suggest his strong displeasure regarding plans for Gymnast.
34. Roosevelt to Marshall, draft ca. July 14, 1942, in Miles, “American Strategy,” p. 108.
35. Roosevelt to Hopkins, Marshall, and King, memorandum, July 16, 1942, “Safe Files,” Box 4, Marshall Folder, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, N.Y. (this appears to be the last version of at least one, possibly two, other drafts); Pogue, Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, pp. 341–42. Pogue notes a book then circulating among both British and American upper echelons, Soldiers and Statesmen by British field marshal Sir William Robertson, that was highly critical of politically inspired expeditions that shifted military emphasis away from the main front. Robertson gives as a prime example Churchill’s role in the ill-fated Dardanelles campaign of World War I, when he was first lord of the Admiralty. Many whispered that the North African venture was another such scheme.
36. “It will be,” Brooke, July 15, 1942, in Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, War Diaries, 1939–1945, ed. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), p. 280; “Marshall and King,” Miles, “American Strategy,” p. 89n.
37. Harry C. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1946), p. 29.
38. Pogue, Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, pp. 399–400. Leahy professed in his diary that he understood from the beginning that his duties included “presiding over the meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Combined Chiefs of Staff,” while Marshall recalled Leahy’s surprise at being asked to preside (Miles, “American Strategy,” pp. 125–26).
39. Miles, “American Strategy,” p. 54n; Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 5, Closing the Ring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1951), p. 6.
40. Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 289.
41. Notes for I Was There, WDL/LC, Box 13, p. 331.
42. FDR to Eisenhower, November 14, 1942, in Roosevelt, Public Papers and Addresses, vol. 11, p. 472.
43. Eisenhower to King, November 2, 1942, in The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower: The War Years, ed. Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., vol. 1 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970), p. 577.
44. Leahy, I Was There, p. 345.
45. Pogue, Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, p. 402.
46. “It has been,” Leahy, I Was There, p. 111; Miles, “American Strategy,” p. 120.
Chapter 16: Fighting the Japanese—and MacArthur
1. Manchester, American Caesar, p. 166.
2. MacArthur, Reminiscences, p. 121.
3. Theodore H. White, In Search of History: A Personal Adventure (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), p. 110. When White recounted this conversation decades later, he added that MacArthur “was completely wrong in this in the spring of 1942, for the U.S. Navy was about to prove it was the finest navy that ever cut the water; and Franklin D. Roosevelt and George C. Marshall were men greater than he.”
4. Washington Times-Herald, June 7, 1942; “treat the operation,” Marshall to King, June 6, 1942, GCM/LC, Reel 21; “the way to handle,” Marshall to King, June 7, 1942, ibid.
5. Transcript of press conference, June 7, 1942, EJK/LC, Box 23.
6. King to Edson, September 29, 1949, EJK/LC, Box 17.
7. Ibid. Ghormley described the frustrations of supply from his perspective in a report he dictated on January 22, 1943; see Narrative, Vice Admiral R. L. Ghormley, U.S.N., South Pacific Command—April through October 1942, Robert L. Ghormley Papers, Collection No. 1153, Box 15, File Folder o, East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, N.C.
8. King to Edson, September 29, 1949, EJK/LC, Box 17; “to ‘educate’ the Army,” Buell, Master of Sea Power, pp. 216–17. For one example of Marshall turning to FDR to direct MacArthur, see Pogue, Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, p. 378.
9. Potter, Nimitz, pp. 110–11. The XPBS-1 (Experimental Patrol Bomber Seaplane) was the experimental version of what became the Sikorsky VS-44. Only three were ever built: Excalibur (NC-41880) crashed off Newfoundland in 1942; Excambian (NC-41881) is restored at the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida; and Exeter (NC-41882) was apparently destroyed in South America.
10. COMINCH to CINCPAC et al., August 8, 1942, CWN/NHHC, Series 2, Box 25.
11. Pogue, Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, p. 382; “Narrative,” p. 10, Ghormley Papers.
12. Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, pp. 314, 385–86.
13. Potter, Nimitz, p. 181.
14. Buell, Master of Sea Power, pp. 221–22.
15. Potter, Nimitz, p. 183.
16. Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, pp. 451, 477.
17. Nimitz photo, Frank Jack Fletcher Papers, Box 2, File Folder 41, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie; Fletcher to Nimitz, January 30, 1945, Fletcher Papers, Box 1, File Folder 25; King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 377–78. Frank Jack Fletcher’s reputation as a solid and steady, if not flashy, naval commander has undergone a reappraisal in recent years with the publication of Lundstrom’s Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2006).
18. Potter, Halsey, p. 150.
19. The quote is from Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 108, which says that this occurred on Saratoga on September 12. Potter, Nimitz, p. 188, gives the date as September 12 on Enterprise; Potter, Halsey, p. 155, says Saratoga on September 22, with a footnote on p. 398 noting Halsey’s date in Admiral Halsey’s Story is wrong. Actually, this ceremony occurred on Enterprise on September 15 and was reported as being “aboard a fighting ship”—without mentioning the ship’s name because of wartime censorship—by Robert Trumbull, who telephoned in the story for publication in the New York Times on September 16, 1942. The Saratoga, crippled from a second torpedo attack and with Frank Jack Fletcher on board, did not arrive in Pearl Harbor until September 21. Even without the evidence from the Times, it would have been totally out of character for Nimitz to introduce Halsey in such a manner in front of the returning Fletcher. Trumbull’s account referred to Halsey as “Fighting Bill,” with no mention of the nickname “Bull.”
20. Potter, Nimitz, pp. 190–92; Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, p. 485; H. Arthur Lamar, I Saw Stars: Some Memories of Commander Hal Lamar, Fleet Admiral Nimitz’ Flag Lieutenant, 1941–1945 (Fredericksburg, Tex.: Admiral Nimitz Foundation, 1985), p. 9.
21. Potter, Nimitz, pp. 193–94.
22. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 109.
23. Nimitz to R. L. Ghormley, Jr. [son], January 19, 1961, Ghormley Papers, Box 18, File Folder b.
24. Potter, Halsey, p. 159.
25. Potter, Nimitz, p. 197.
26. The omelet quote was attributed to Halsey in Time, November 30, 1942, p. 30; “saltier than” and “known throughout,” Time, November 2, 1942, p. 31.
27. Potter, Halsey, p. 160.
28. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, pp. 117, 139.
29. Gerald E. Wheeler, Kinkaid of the Seventh Fleet (Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1995), pp. 273–86; see also John B. Lundstrom, The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign: Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1994), pp. 353, 356–459, arguably the best account of the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.
30. Halsey to Nimitz, October 31, 1942, CWN/NHHC, Series 13, “Fighting Bill” re
ference in New York Times, September 16, 1942.
31. Halsey was again critical of Kinkaid and felt that he should have arrived sooner. Afterward, Halsey relieved Kinkaid of command of Task Force 16. See Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, pp. 493–95.
32. “US Navy and Marine Corps Personnel Casualties in World War II,” Department of the Navy, Naval History and Heritage Command, www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq11-1.htm, accessed January 19, 2011.
33. Time, November 30, 1942, p. 28.
34. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 132.
35. Halsey to Nimitz, November 6, 1942, CWN/NHHC, Series 13. “Cheerfully yours” and “Stay cheerful” were standard conversation and letter closings of the World War II era, not unlike “Have a nice day” and “Take care” would become to later generations.
36. Crosse to Halsey, November 18, 1942, WFH/LC, Box 38.
37. Crosse to Halsey, November 25, 1942, WFH/LC, Box 38.
38. South Pacific Force memo, pencil dated June 2, 1943, WFH/LC, Box 38.
39. Churchill Remarks at Lord Mayor’s Luncheon, London, November 10, 1942.
40. “Battle of the Pacific,” Time, December 7, 1942, pp. 30–34.
41. Potter, Nimitz, p. 175.
42. Nimitz, message, December 25, 1942, CWN/NHHC, Series 4, Speeches.
43. Marshall to King, December 22, 1942, and King to Marshall, December 23, 1942, EJK/LC, Box 13.
44. Halsey to Nimitz, November 6, 1942, CWN/NHHC, Series 13. To MacArthur’s credit, by 1943 he was making inspection trips to the front lines, although they were heavily orchestrated for publicity purposes.
Chapter 17: From Casablanca to Teheran
1. King to Roosevelt, October 23, 1942, EJK/LC, Box 14; King, Fleet Admiral King, p. 412. FDR’s present turned out to be a framed portrait of himself.
2. “a year of conferences,” Leahy, I Was There, p. 142; Andrew Roberts, Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941–1945 (New York: Harper, 2009), p. 314.
3. WDL/Diary, January 9, 1943.
4. Whitehill Interview with King, August 26, 1950, EJK/NHC/NWC, Box 7, File Folder 28. Marshall’s plane also carried British air marshal Sir Charles Portal, who technically outranked both Marshall and King.
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