5. H. H. Arnold, Global Mission (New York: Harper Brothers, 1949), p. 389.
6. Leahy, I Was There, p. 145.
7. Ibid., p. 144.
8. D. Clayton James, The Years of MacArthur, vol. 2, 1941–1945 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975), p. 242. Anecdotally, the story is told that MacArthur then raged to his corps commander in the area, Lieutenant General Robert L. Eichelberger, “Go out there, Bob, and take Buna or don’t come back alive” (p. 244).
9. Halsey to Nimitz, February 13, 1943, WFH/LC, Box 15, File Folder, Special Correspondence, Nimitz, 1941–April 1943. For a time, Nimitz kept a photo of MacArthur on his desk. Some assumed this was in keeping with Nimitz’s public demeanor of neither badmouthing MacArthur or the army nor allowing his subordinates to do the same. The true explanation, according to one report, was that Nimitz “kept the picture on his desk merely to remind himself not ‘to make Jovian pronouncements complete with thunderbolts’ ” (Potter, Nimitz, p. 222).
10. Potter, Nimitz, p. 214. After sending a lengthy memo on strategy, MacArthur cabled Nimitz and Knox: “An exchange of views may preclude the necessity for an immediate conference that requires long journeys and prolonged absence of higher commanders” (ibid.).
11. Potter, Halsey, p. 215.
12. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, pp. 154–55.
13. MacArthur, Reminiscences, pp. 173–74.
14. Nimitz to Halsey, May 14, 1943, CWN/NHHC, Series 13, Box 120.
15. Nimitz to Carpender, May 18, 1943, CWN/NHHC, Series 13, Box 120.
16. Potter, Halsey, pp. 219–20.
17. Potter, Nimitz, p. 233.
18. For Halsey’s account of his involvement and subsequent leaks, see Halsey to Nimitz, May 26, 1943, WFH/LC, Box 15, File Folder, Special Correspondence, Nimitz, March–November 1943. Although written as a popular piece without footnotes, Burke Davis’s Get Yamamoto (New York: Random House, 1969) may remain the best overall account of the decision making, as well as the flight itself. See also John T. Wible, The Yamamoto Mission (Fredericksburg, Tex.: Admiral Nimitz Foundation, 1988), and Donald A. Davis, Lightning Strike: The Secret Mission to Kill Admiral Yamamoto and Avenge Pearl Harbor (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005). Leahy’s diary makes no mention of this event or FDR’s whereabouts. Adding to the lore of this mission is MacArthur’s account in Reminiscences, pp. 174–75. With an almost “I was there” description, MacArthur manages to convey a sense that his command was somehow involved in the mission and responsible for the results—even though he gave the intercept time as three in the afternoon instead of in the morning. After the Yamamoto mission, when the Americans returned to the Philippines, MacArthur’s headquarters in the Price House was repeatedly attacked in a way that was almost certainly targeting him personally (Manchester, American Caesar, p. 397).
19. WDL/Diary, November 4, 1936.
20. Leahy, I Was There, pp. 150–51.
21. Tucson Daily Citizen, November 25, 1942.
22. New York Times, December 6, 1942. National profiles in Life, June 29, 1942, and the cover story in Time, November 30, 1942, did not mention the “Bull” nickname.
23. Crosse to Halsey, June 23, 1943, and Halsey to Crosse, July 3, 1943, WFH/LC, Box 35. A search of NewspaperARCHIVE.com on June 9, 2010, an admittedly small sample, nonetheless lists 13 results for “Bull Halsey” from 1940 to 1943, and 862 such results for 1944 to 1945.
24. Halsey to Belnap [sic], October 8, 1943, WDH/LC, Box 3. Halsey’s secretary misspelled Charles Belknap’s name.
25. Carpender to Nimitz, May 31, 1943, CWN/NHHC, Series 13.
26. Pogue, Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, p. 393.
27. Forrest C. Pogue, Marshall: Organizer of Victory, 1943–1945 (New York: Viking, 1973), p. 200.
28. Roberts, Masters and Commanders, p. 358.
29. Leahy, I Was There, pp. 158–59.
30. “hours of argument,” Alanbrooke, War Diaries, p. 401; “Hannibal and Napoleon,” Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 335.
31. Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 332.
32. Ibid., pp. 332–33.
33. Alanbrooke, War Diaries, p. 405.
34. Roberts, Masters and Commanders, pp. 364–65.
35. Alanbrooke, War Diaries, p. 408.
36. For an overview of World War II in Alaska, see Walter R. Borneman, Alaska: Saga of a Bold Land (New York: HarperCollins, 2003).
37. Potter, Nimitz, pp. 241–42; Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 356.
38. Larry I. Bland, ed., George C. Marshall: Interviews and Reminiscences for Forrest C. Pogue (Lexington, Va.: George C. Marshall Research Foundation, 1991), p. 622.
39. Alanbrooke, War Diaries, p. 442.
40. For one analysis and telling of this story, see Roberts, Masters and Commanders, pp. 405–6; King’s account, saying the firing was by an aide and not Mountbatten himself, is in King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 486–87. Arnold’s account is in Arnold, Global Mission, pp. 443–44. Leahy mentions it in passing in I Was There, pp. 178–79.
41. Leahy, I Was There, p. 179.
42. WDL/Diary, November 12–13, 1943. For what it is worth, King’s memoirs note the departure time as 12:06 a.m. (King, Fleet Admiral King, p. 499).
43. For versions of the torpedo incident, see Leahy, I Was There, p. 196; King, Fleet Admiral King, p. 501; and Buell, Master of Sea Power, pp. 419–20.
44. Buell, Master of Sea Power, pp. 420–21.
45. Whitehill interview with King, August 29, 1949, EJK/NHC/NWC, Box 7, File Folder 28. Eisenhower’s corroboration of these events is in Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1949), p. 196.
46. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, p. 197.
47. Leahy, I Was There, p. 200.
48. Ibid., pp. 202–4, 208.
49. Ibid., pp. 214–15.
50. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, pp. 206–8.
Chapter 18: Take Care, My Boy
1. Time, May 18, 1942, p. 20.
2. Chester Nimitz, Jr., to Nimitz, February 7, 1944, CWN/NHHC, Series 2, Box 26; Blair, Silent Victory, pp. 589–92.
3. Blair, Silent Victory, pp. 692–94, 962–63.
4. Manning Kimmel to Husband E. Kimmel, December 18, 1941, Kimmel Papers, Box 2, File Folder “Correspondence, September–December, 1941.”
5. Blair, Silent Victory, pp. 204, 309, 454, 599.
6. Ibid., pp. 660–61. See also Thomas Kimmel to Blair, January 10, 1973, Clay Blair, Jr., Papers, Box 68, File Folder 3, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, in which Tom Kimmel answered a series of Blair’s questions and said that he had never heard this story of his brother’s fate. Kimmel hoped that it would not be published while his mother, Manning’s widow, and their daughter were alive, but Blair published the story in Silent Victory in 1975. Blair also asked whether the Kimmel brothers were in any way “held back” or pushed forward because of their father’s high rank. Tom responded, “As far as I could tell neither of us was actually ‘held back’ but we certainly were not pushed forward because of our father. As for causing us personal problems I do not know of any direct incidents. However during my career I was never offered any kind of a staff position and I had the underlying feeling that most Admirals would just as soon stay clear of the name—Kimmel.” Tom retired from the navy as a captain in 1965.
7. Compiled from Pogue, Marshall.
8. WDL/Diary, June 26, 1927.
9. Rice to Buell, July 2, 1976, EJK/NHC/NWC, Box 7, File Folder 13.
10. Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 512.
11. Potter, Halsey, pp. 126, 156, 234–35.
12. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 165.
13. Blair, Silent Victory, pp. 241–42, 412, 603–4; see also John McCain, Faith of My Fathers (New York: Random House, 1999).
14. Leahy to Wing, February 4, 1953, WDL/NHHC, Roll 1.
15. Nimitz to Catherine Nimitz, January 27, 1945, CWN/USNA, Box 1, File Folder 3.
16. The maternity care story is recounted in Cook to Buell, August 5, 197
4, EJK/NHC/NWC, Box 1, File Folder 2.
17. This cursory opinion is based on Buell, Master of Sea Power, and the author’s independent research.
18. See, for example, Halsey to King, May 16, 1938, WFH/LC, Box 14, acknowledging “Fan’s illness,” and Potter, Halsey, p. 262, about her inappropriate remarks.
19. Time, May 18, 1942, p. 20.
20. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 192.
Chapter 19: Driving It Home
1. Potter, Nimitz, p. 261.
2. Ibid., p. 264.
3. For Smith’s continuing postwar criticism of Tarawa, see Holland M. Smith and Percy Finch, Coral and Brass (New York: Scribner’s, 1949), pp. 111–12.
4. Spruance to Potter, December 1, 1964, RAS/NHHC, Box 3.
5. Potter, Nimitz, p. 247.
6. Ibid., p. 265.
7. Buell, Quiet Warrior, pp. 232–33.
8. Ibid., p. 239.
9. Ibid., p. 237.
10. Potter, Nimitz, pp. 267–68.
11. Buell, Quiet Warrior, p. 239.
12. Ibid., pp. 248–49.
13. Washington Evening Star, February 22, 1944.
14. Roosevelt, radio address, June 5, 1944, in Public Papers and Addresses, 1944–45 volume, pp. 147–52.
15. Leahy, I Was There, p. 240.
16. This account of the Normandy visit is taken from King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 547–53; Arnold, Global Mission, pp. 503–9, specifically, “Admiral King,” p. 505; Henry H. Arnold, American Airpower Comes of Age: General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold’s World War II Diaries, ed. John W. Huston, vol. 2 (Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: Air University Press, 2002), pp. 154–55, specifically, “Our own Navy,” p. 155; and Pogue, Marshall: Organizer of Victory, pp. 389–96. King’s drinking is recounted in Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 456.
17. Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 448.
18. Leahy, I Was There, pp. 241–42.
19. Buell, Master of Sea Power, pp. 461–62.
20. Leahy, I Was There, p. 219.
21. Pogue, Marshall: Organizer of Victory, pp. 439–41.
22. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 186.
23. Potter, Nimitz, p. 283.
24. Ibid., pp. 283–84.
25. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, pp. 189–90. Pronunciation of Nimitz’s name is from Potter, Halsey, p. 266.
26. Pogue, Marshall: Organizer of Victory, p. 441.
27. Ibid., p. 375.
28. Leahy, I Was There, p. 224.
29. Potter, Nimitz, p. 289. Another reason for MacArthur’s change of face may have been the realization that his presidential prospects for 1944 were dimming. During this period, MacArthur was criticizing the navy and the Roosevelt administration, while at the same time denying any political ambitions. However, his penchant for grand and verbose statements got him into trouble when he corresponded with Congressman A. L. Miller of Nebraska. Miller made the letters public, and they painted MacArthur in an extremist light. See Manchester, American Caesar, pp. 362–63.
30. E. B. Potter, “The Command Personality,” United States Naval Institute Proceedings 95, no. 791 (July 1969), p. 25.
31. Buell, Quiet Warrior, pp. 279–80.
32. Ibid., p. 285.
33. Ibid., p. 320. After the war, King reiterated this when he told his biographer, Walter Muir Whitehill, “When I got to Saipan, I said immediately, ‘Spruance, what you decided was correct.’ He had to remember the ships based on Japan itself” (Whitehill Interview with King, July 29, 1950, EJK/NHC/NWC, Box 7, File Folder 18).
34. Buell, Quiet Warrior, p. 303.
35. Time, June 26, 1944, cover.
36. King, Fleet Admiral King, p. 560.
Chapter 20: The Crippling Blow: Submarines or Airpower?
1. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 69.
2. Nimitz quote, U.S. Navy Submarine Museum, New London, Connecticut.
3. Charles A. Lockwood, Sink ’Em All: Submarine Warfare in the Pacific (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1951), p. 85.
4. Potter, Sea Power, p. 829.
5. Nimitz to Halsey, May 14, 1943, CWN/NHHC, Series 13, Box 120.
6. United States Strategic Bombing Survey Summary Report (Pacific War) (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1946), pp. 12, 14.
7. The remaining losses were as follows: army land-based aircraft, 310 ships/0.7 million tons; navy surface craft, 123 ships/0.3 million tons; marine land-based aircraft, 99 ships/0.2 million tons; army and navy-marine aircraft in combination, 32 ships/0.2 million tons; mines laid by all services, 266 ships/0.6 million tons; other combinations and unknown causes, 64 ships/0.3 million tons. Reports of Japanese shipping losses vary slightly, mostly because some sources confuse all naval and merchant losses by all Allied countries and all causes with only those sunk by U.S. forces. These figures are from Japanese Naval and Merchant Shipping Losses During World War II by All Causes, “Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee (JANAC), February 1947, http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/japaneseshiploss.htm, accessed December 28, 2010. Marshall and King formed this committee in January 1943 to evaluate enemy shipping losses. The other significant report of enemy naval losses is found in the Strategic Bombing Survey Summary Report of 1946.
8. Nimitz to Halsey, May 14, 1943, CWN/NHHC, Series 13, Box 120.
9. Strategic Bombing Survey Summary Report, p. 14.
10. Ibid., p. 25.
11. Ibid., p. 15.
12. For this and an economic analysis of the effectiveness of B-29s laying mines against shipping in the final year of the war versus submarine warfare, see Richard P. Hallion, “Decisive Air Power Prior to 1950,” Air Force History and Museums Program, Headquarters, USAF, Bolling AFB, http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/EARS/Hallionpapers/decisiveairpower1950.htm, accessed December 22, 2010.
13. Ibid. In truth, the number of bombs dropped on the home islands of Japan was but a small fraction of the number dropped in the European Theater: 160,800 tons versus 2.7 million tons, half of which was dropped within Germany’s own borders (Strategic Bombing Survey Summary Report, p. 16).
14. Arnold, American Airpower Comes of Age, vol. 2, p. 318.
15. King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 602–3.
Chapter 21: Halsey’s Luck
1. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 197.
2. James M. Merrill, A Sailor’s Admiral: A Biography of William F. Halsey (New York: Crowell, 1976), p. 120.
3. MacArthur to Halsey, undated, WFH/LC, Box 15.
4. MacArthur, Reminiscences, p. 192.
5. Leahy, I Was There, p. 247.
6. Roosevelt, July 11, 1944, in Complete Presidential Press Conferences, vol. 24, pp. 24–25.
7. Leahy, I Was There, pp. 247–48.
8. WDL/Diary, July 22, 1944. On July 21, with almost maddening brevity and lack of any political feeling, Leahy wrote, “The Democratic Party today nominated Senator Truman, of Missouri, as candidate for Vice President.”
9. James, Years of MacArthur, vol. 2, pp. 527–28; Leahy, I Was There, pp. 249–50. Others, including Samuel Rosenman, have quoted FDR as saying a version of the Leahy quote about MacArthur’s attire.
10. James, Years of MacArthur, vol. 2, p. 529.
11. Newspaper clippings, 1944, CWN/NHHC, Series 8.
12. Manchester, American Caesar, p. 368.
13. King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 566–67.
14. Manchester, American Caesar, p. 369.
15. Miles, “American Strategy,” pp. 117–18. For King’s feelings about Nimitz, see Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 469.
16. Leahy, I Was There, p. 250. After reporting the results of the conference to the Joint Chiefs upon his return to Washington, Leahy noted, “They may have been somewhat surprised to learn that Nimitz and MacArthur said they had no disagreements at the moment and that they could work out their joint plans in harmony” (Leahy, I Was There, p. 255).
17. Roosevelt, July 29, 1944, in Complete Presidential Press Conferences, vol. 24, pp. 26–37; WDL/Diary, July 29, 1944.
18. Schoeffel to Buell, September 9, 1974, EJK/NHC/NWC, Box 2, File Folder 19.
19. Nimitz to Halsey, May 14, 1943, CWN/NHHC, Series 13, Box 120.
20. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 197.
21. Ibid., pp. 199–200.
22. Pogue, Marshall: Organizer of Victory, pp. 453–54. Significantly, the decision was made without consulting the British chiefs of staff. Here was just one more indication that the Americans considered the Pacific largely their own domain. During the Quebec Conference, King got into quite a row with the British over their plans for the Royal Navy to join Pacific operations and belatedly share in the final victory. For more information, see chapter 24.
23. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, pp. 205–8. Ulithi, with its fine anchorage, was occupied by a regimental combat team without opposition on September 23, a week after the Peleliu invasion.
24. C. Vann Woodward, The Battle for Leyte Gulf: The Incredible Story of World War II’s Largest Naval Battle (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2007), pp. 19–20. Halsey recounts the burning Japanese planes in Admiral Halsey’s Story, pp. 206–7.
25. Woodward, Leyte Gulf, pp. 42, 90, 159.
26. Halsey to King via Nimitz, November 13, 1944, Action Report Third Fleet, p. 2, WFH/LC, Box 35.
27. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 214.
28. Action Report, pp. 4–5.
29. For information about the timing of this turnaround message and Halsey’s knowledge of it, see Evan Thomas, Sea of Thunder: Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign, 1941–1945 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), pp. 226–27.
30. Potter, Halsey, p. 297. For a slightly different version, see Theodore Taylor, The Magnificent Mitscher (New York: Norton, 1954), pp. 260–62.
31. Woodward, Leyte Gulf, pp. 118–19.
32. Action Report, Enclosure A, pp. 28, 31.
33. Ibid., p. 34.
34. Thomas, Sea of Thunder, p. 300.
35. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 220.
36. Action Report, Enclosure A, p. 33.
37. This battle of CVEs off Samar is an epic that is well told in Evan Thomas’s Sea of Thunder and other books. The pilots who flew off these escort carriers to provide air cover and close-in support over the beachheads were a hardy lot. A few verses of one carousing song said it all:
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