Navy fliers fly off the big carriers,
Army fliers aren’t seen oe’r the sea;
But we’re in the lousy Marine Corps,
So we get these dang CVEs!
O Midway has thousand-foot runways,
And Leyte, eight hundred and ten.
We’d still not have much of a carrier
With two of ours laid end to end.
We envy the boys on the big ones.
And we’d trade in a minute or two,
’Cause we’d like to see those poor bastards
Try doing the things we do!
From “Cuts and Guts,” http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ships/ships-cv.html, accessed June 23, 2010.
38. Strategic Bombing Survey Summary Report, p. 8.
39. Woodward, Leyte Gulf, p. 216.
40. Halsey to Nimitz, MacArthur, Kinkaid, and King, radio message, October 25, 1944, date-time group 251317 at pp. 2392–93 of “Nimitz Gray Book,” Naval History and Heritage Command, or online at http://www.ibiblio.org/anrs/docs/D/D7/nimitz_graybook5.pdf, accessed February 19, 2011.
41. Potter, Nimitz, p. 344.
42. Ibid., p. 344.
43. King, Fleet Admiral King, p. 580; example of cartoons in King to Halsey, August 26, 1949, WFH/LC, Box 14.
44. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, pp. 226–27. Jocko Clark recalled being in King’s office the morning of the uncertainty over Task Force 34. King was “pacing up and down in a towering rage,” certain that the Japanese were about to annihilate the Leyte beachhead (Clark, Carrier Admiral, p. 201).
45. Schoeffel to Buell, September 9, 1974, EJK/NHC/NWC, Box 2, File Folder 19. Malcolm Shoeffel, then King’s assistant chief of staff for operations, also noted, however, “I should add that if any of us, including King suspected at that time the Japanese had deliberately lured Halsey away, none of us voiced the thought” (p. 6).
46. Thomas, Sea of Thunder, p. 325, quoting Sutherland papers.
47. James, Years of MacArthur, vol. 2, p. 565.
48. Potter, Nimitz, pp. 342–43.
49. Whitehill interview with King, July 29, 1950, EJK/NHC/NWC, Box 7, File Folder 18.
Chapter 22: Two Typhoons and Five Stars
1. Merrill, A Sailor’s Admiral, pp. 187–88; Buckner F. Melton, Jr., Sea Cobra: Admiral Halsey’s Task Force and the Great Pacific Typhoon (Guilford, Conn.: Lyons Press, 2007), p. 100.
2. Merrill, A Sailor’s Admiral, p. 189.
3. Ibid., pp. 191–92.
4. “Record of Proceedings of a Court of Inquiry Convened Onboard the USS Cascade by order of the Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet, United States Fleet, December 26, 1944,” p. 160, Naval History and Heritage Command, microfilm NRS 1978-43, Court of Inquiry, Typhoon of 18 December 1944 (hereafter cited as “1944 Court of Inquiry”). Later, the court of inquiry determined that this late run to the northeast contributed to the disaster, “since this maneuver held the fleet in or near the path of the storm center, and was an error in judgment on the part of Commander Task Force 38 [McCain] who directed it and of Commander THIRD fleet [Halsey] who permitted it.”
5. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 239.
6. Halsey to MacArthur, radio message, date-time group 172318, and Halsey to Nimitz, date-time group 172333, December 17, 1944, at pp. 2461–62 of “Nimitz Gray Book,” Naval History and Heritage Command, or online at http://www.ibiblio.org/anrs/docs/D/D7/nimitz_gray book5.pdf, accessed February 19, 2011.
7. “1944 Court of Inquiry,” pp. 70, 75–76.
8. Ibid., p. 77.
9. Ibid., p. 160.
10. Ibid., pp. 166–67.
11. Ibid., Nimitz Endorsement of Findings to Judge Advocate General, January 22, 1945.
12. Ibid., appendixes, CINCPAC to Pacific Fleet and Naval Shore Activities, Pacific Ocean Area, February 13, 1945, p. 3.
13. Ibid., King Endorsement of Findings to Secretary of the Navy, February 21, 1945, p. 1.
14. Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 384.
15. Leahy, I Was There, p. 221.
16. Public Law 482, 78th Congress, December 14, 1944.
17. At least anecdotal proof of Halsey’s enduring fame comes from the author’s experiences in writing this book. When he would mention that he was writing about America’s four fleet admirals and then pause expectantly, Halsey, with Nimitz a very close second, was the first name that was inevitably offered up. King was occasionally named, Leahy almost never.
18. King to Spruance, June 21, 1948, EJK/LC, Box 18.
19. Spruance to King, June 24, 1948, EJK/LC, Box 18.
20. Spruance to Nimitz, May 15, 1957, RAS/NHHC, Box 1.
21. Spruance to Potter, August 18, 1968, RAS/NHHC, Box 4. Among those interested in belatedly getting Spruance five stars was NBC anchorman Chet Huntley. Although Spruance’s contributions were well known, Leahy’s close association with Roosevelt was not fully appreciated, as is evidenced by what retired rear admiral Richard W. Bates told Huntley in 1961: “I think that had the President not given five stars to Admiral Leahy, they would definitely have been given to Admiral Spruance” (Bates to Huntley, May 17, 1961, Richard W. Bates Papers, Box 3, File Folder 21, Naval War College, Newport, R.I.). Regardless of how deserving Spruance was, there had never been any question that Roosevelt would accord the first five-star set to his closest and most trusted sea dog.
22. Potter, Halsey, pp. 324–27.
23. Alton Keith Gilbert, A Leader Born: The Life of Admiral John Sidney McCain, Pacific Carrier Commander (Philadelphia: Castmate, 2006), p. 186. General background for the second typhoon story is from Merrill, A Sailor’s Admiral, pp. 216–29, and Potter, Halsey, pp. 336–40.
24. Clark, Carrier Admiral, pp. 234–38.
25. Merrill, A Sailor’s Admiral, p. 227.
26. Ibid., p. 227.
27. Ibid.
28. Clark, Carrier Admiral, p. 240.
29. Merrill, A Sailor’s Admiral, p. 228.
30. Whitehill interview with King, July 29, 1950, EJK/NHC/NWC, Box 7, File Folder 18.
Chapter 23: Interim President
1. WDL/Diary, July 29, 1944.
2. Leahy, I Was There, p. 254; Robert H. Ferrell, The Dying President: Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1944–1945 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998), pp. 82–83; Geoffrey C. Ward, ed., Closest Companion: The Unknown Story of the Intimate Relationship Between Franklin Roosevelt and Margaret Suckley (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), p. 321; William M. Rigdon, White House Sailor (New York: Doubleday, 1962), pp. 129–31. An FDR letter to Suckley, dated March 23, 1936, and published in Closest Companion suggests that Roosevelt stayed at least one night on board the destroyer Dale while in Florida.
3. Roosevelt, address to Teamsters, September 23, 1944, in Public Papers and Addresses, 1944–45 volume, p. 290.
4. “his face was ashen,” Potter, Nimitz, p. 288; “The terrific burden” Leahy, I Was There, p. 220.
5. Leahy, I Was There, pp. 234–35; Ferrell, Dying President, p. 37.
6. Leahy, I Was There, pp. 239, 245. Leahy acknowledged, “While I have long been sure that the President would like to retire from his present office, this is the first time he has expressed himself to me clearly in regard to his attitude toward renomination.” For a detailed look at FDR’s work schedule and health situation while at Hobcaw, see Ferrell, Dying President, pp. 68–74.
7. Leahy, I Was There, p. 220.
8. MacArthur, Reminiscenses, p. 199; Manchester, American Caesar, p. 368. Perhaps no one had more reason to be concerned about Roosevelt’s health than his new vice presidential candidate. Harry Truman had long professed no interest in the vice presidency, but once on the ticket, he expressed grave worry about Roosevelt’s appearance after he met with the president for a photo op on the White House lawn shortly after FDR’s return from Alaska. Afterward, Truman confessed to his executive assistant, Matthew J. Connelly, that he was worried about Roosevelt’s health. Noting that he had been assigned Secret Service protection, Truman told Connelly, “I hope no
thing happens to the President” (Matthew J. Connelly, Oral History Interview, Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, Independence, Mo., November 28, 1967, pp. 111–12; for Truman disclaiming interest in the vice presidency, see p. 90).
9. Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt—The Home Front in World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p. 545.
10. WDL/Diary, September 9, 1944.
11. Ferrell, Dying President, p. 85. Leahy had seen the movie the week before in Washington with his granddaughter and sat in front of Wilson’s widow, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson. Despite his strident comments on Wilson’s death in 1923, the movie left Leahy “with a more sympathetic attitude, at least for the time being, toward Mr. Wilson,” although he continued to acknowledge Wilson’s complete failure at the Paris Peace Conference (WDL/Diary, September 7, 1944). Alexander Knox, who portrayed Wilson, was nominated for best actor for his performance.
12. WDL/Diary, November 7–8, 1944.
13. Adams, Witness to Power, p. 266, quoting Hopkins to Leahy, December 21, 1944. See also Leahy’s “Dear Harry” response of the same date, saying, “You may be sure I have never had any doubt whatever in regard to your attitude toward me,” Leahy to Hopkins, December 21, 1944, Harry L. Hopkins Papers, Series 1, Box 12, File Folder 19, Special Collections, Georgetown University Library, Washington, D.C.
14. WDL/Diary, December 24–25, 1944. Leahy was able to spend Christmas Day uninterrupted with his two grandchildren. It was probably the last Christmas, he noted rather wistfully, that eight-year-old Robert would “believe in Santa Claus.”
15. Leahy, FDR inaugural dinner remarks, January 20, 1945, WDL/NHHC, Reel 8.
16. “If we had spent,” Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 483; “the most controversial,” Leahy, I Was There, p. 291. King reported afterward that the harbor at Sevastopol was in fact in “good shape” and that five major units of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet were present there (King, Fleet Admiral King, p. 592).
17. Leahy, I Was There, pp. 291–92.
18. King, Fleet Admiral King, p. 586.
19. Leahy, I Was There, pp. 295–96.
20. King, Fleet Admiral King, p. 588; Leahy, I Was There, p. 297.
21. Leahy, I Was There, p. 297; King, Fleet Admiral King, p. 592.
22. Leahy, I Was There, p. 290.
23. Ibid., p. 298.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid., p. 314.
26. George M. Elsey, Oral History Interview, Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, Independence, Mo., July 7, 1970, pp. 334–35.
27. Leahy, I Was There, p. 311.
28. Ibid., p. 323. For the impact of Roosevelt’s health on policy at Yalta, see, for example, Warren F. Kimball, Forged in War: Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Second World War (New York: William Morrow, 1997), pp. 339–41.
29. Adams, Witness to Power, pp. 236–37.
30. Rigdon, White House Sailor, p. 100.
31. Time, May 28, 1945, p. 14.
32. Elsey interview, April 9, 1970, pp. 320–21. Examples of military decisions with political overtones include invading the Philippines instead of Formosa, thus bringing less aid to Chiang Kai-shek’s government, and not racing the Soviets to a meeting point farther east in Europe. Elsey’s view of Leahy’s receptiveness to State Department advice is seconded by Bohlen, who reported to the White House as State Department liaison after Secretary of State Cordell Hull—who insisted on managing his own communications with the White House—left office for health reasons in November 1944. Bohlen did, however, acknowledge Leahy’s “snapping-turtle manner” (Charles E. Bohlen, Witness to History, 1929–1969 [New York: Norton, 1973], pp. 165–67, 206).
33. Ferrell, Dying President, pp. 110–13. For an insider’s view of Roosevelt’s failing health, see Margaret Suckley’s comments of him looking “terribly badly—so tired that every word seems to be an effort” (Ward, Closest Companion, pp. 400–1).
34. WDL/Diary, March 29, 1945.
35. Leahy, I Was There, pp. 347–48. Within a week of FDR’s death, Leahy’s references to “the President” in his diary would mean Truman.
36. Elsey interview, April 9, 1970, pp. 252–53.
37. Connelly interview, pp. 99–100. Bohlen recalled that Leahy “was incensed—at Byrnes’s failure to report fully” to the president (Bohlen, Witness to History, p. 251).
Chapter 24: Toward Tokyo Bay
1. Roberts, Masters and Commanders, pp. 519–20; “At this point,” Pogue, Marshall: Organizer of Victory, p. 453.
2. Kimball, Forged in War, p. 273. During 1943, after early losses decimated American carrier ranks and before the arrival of the Essex-class fast carriers, the British loaned the Americans their prewar carrier HMS Victorious to bolster naval air operations in the Pacific.
3. Miles, “American Strategy,” pp. 183–84.
4. Potter, Nimitz, pp. 347–48. As late as the Potsdam Conference, King had to remind his British allies that the Americans were still calling the shots in the Pacific. British operational participation under Nimitz’s command did not give them equal say in strategy (Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 494).
5. See, for example, Elsey interview, July 7, 1970, pp. 333–35. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945.
6. Potter, Nimitz, pp. 378–80.
7. Leahy, I Was There, pp. 384–85; King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 605–6; Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 491; Pogue, Marshall: Organizer of Victory, p. 528; Richard B. Frank, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 34.
8. Marshall to King, March 15, 1945, and staff memo to Marshall, March 17, 1945, GCM/LC, Reel 21.
9. King to Marshall, June 29, 1945, GCM/LC, Reel 21.
10. King to Truman, December 16, 1943, and Truman to King, December 29, 1943, EJK/LC, Box 22.
11. Townsend Hoopes and Douglas Brinkley, Driven Patriot: The Life and Times of James Forrestal (New York: Knopf, 1992), p. 175.
12. King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 631, 634–35; Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 501; “I didn’t like,” Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, p. 180. One area where King cooperated with Forrestal was Forrestal’s strong push for more than token racial integration of the navy. Lester Granger, who later became Forrestal’s special representative on racial matters and was long associated with the National Urban League, recounted this story: Forrestal went to King and expressed his frustration, saying, “I want to do something about it, but I can’t do anything about it unless the officers are behind me. I want your help. What do you say?” According to Granger, King sat quiet for a moment, looked out the window, and then replied, “You know, we say that we are a democracy and a democracy ought to have a democratic Navy. I don’t think you can do it, but if you want to try, I’m behind you all the way” (Morris J. McGregor, Jr., Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940–1965 [Washington, D.C.: United States Army, Center of Military History, 1981], pp. 88-89).
13. Potter, Nimitz, p. 382.
14. Potter, Halsey, pp. 343–45; “If the enemy,” Time, July 23, 1945, p. 27. Time also called Halsey “the tough, stubby seadog whom the Japanese mortally hate & fear.”
15. Frank, Downfall, pp. 147, 212–13.
16. Ibid., pp. 274–75.
17. Ibid., p. 276.
18. King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 620–21; Potter, Nimitz, pp. 381–82; Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 266.
19. Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, vol. 1, 1945: Year of Decisions (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955), p. 11.
20. Leahy, I Was There, pp. 430–31.
21. WDL/Diary, August 8, 1945.
22. Leahy, I Was There, pp. 440–41.
23. “starved the Japanese,” King, Fleet Admiral King, p. 621; “didn’t like,” Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 497.
24. Potter, Nimitz, pp. 382, 386; Layton, “And I Was There,” p. 492.
25. Merrill, A Sailor’s Admiral, p. 233.
26. Frank, Downfall, pp. 276, 419–20n.
27. Potter, Nimitz, pp. 388
–89.
28. Ibid., p. 389; Potter, Halsey, pp. 347–48; “I wonder,” Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 498.
29. Leahy, radio address, August 15, 1945, WDL/NHHC, Reel 8.
30. Leahy, I Was There, p. 365.
31. Potter, Nimitz, p. 390.
32. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 290.
33. Ibid.; New York Times, August 26, 1945.
34. Potter, Nimitz, p. 391.
35. Ibid., p. 390.
36. New York Times, August 30, 1945.
37. New York Times, August 31, 1945. Later, Halsey was photographed, cigarette in hand and looking haggard, in the saddle on a horse white washed for the occasion as a spoof by Major General William C. Chase of the First Cavalry Division.
38. Potter, Nimitz, p. 393.
39. “Japanese Sign Final Surrender!,” United News newsreel, 1945, http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=vcnH_kF1zXc&feature=player_embedded, accessed March 28, 2011; Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 283.
40. Buell, Quiet Warrior, p. 399; E. P. Forrestel, Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, USN: A Study in Command (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1966), p. 223.
41. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 284.
42. Nimitz to Catherine Nimitz, September 2, 1945, CWN/USNA.
43. Nimitz to Catherine Nimitz, September 3, 1945, CWN/USNA.
Chapter 25: Measures of Men
1. “Personnel Strength of the U.S. Navy: 1775 to Present,” Department of the Navy, Naval History and Heritage Command, www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq65-1.htm, accessed February 6, 2011 (personnel figures include officers, nurses, enlisted, and officer candidates); “U.S. Navy Active Ship Force Levels, 1917–,” www.history.navy.mil/branches/?org9-4.htm#1938, accessed February 6, 2011.
2. Merrill, A Sailor’s Admiral, p. 245.
3. For Halsey’s postwar activities, see chapter 22 of Potter, Halsey. Halsey continued to receive full active-duty pay even though he was moved to the retired list in 1947 for reasons of physical disability. Frances “Fan” Grandy Halsey died in 1968. The Leyte argument just before Halsey’s death was with E. B. Potter over a chapter in Sea Power, a textbook slated for use at the Naval Academy. Potter’s associate editor, Chester Nimitz, urged Potter to remove his editorial remarks second-guessing Halsey, which he did.
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