The Admirals

1. WDL/Diary, April 16, 1898; Oregon statistics from Patrick McSherry, “U.S.S. Oregon,” Spanish-American War Centennial Website, http://www.spanamwar.com/oregon.htm accessed July 27, 2009.

2. Henry H. Adams, Witness to Power: The Life of Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1985), pp. 5–7; Roster of Wisconsin Volunteers, War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865, Wisconsin Historical Society Library, http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/roster/index.asp accessed July 27, 2009; “Delayed Certificate of Birth,” front matter, WDL/Diary.

3. “You could no more” Lilian Handlin, George Bancroft: The Intellectual as Democrat (New York: Harper and Row, 1984), p. 208; “the temptations and distractions,” “A Brief History of the United States Naval Academy,” United States Naval Academy, http://www.usna.edu/VirtualTour/150years/, accessed June 27, 2010.

4. Congress recognized the existence of the school by voting $28,200 for repairs, improvements and instruction at Fort Severn in 1846. The system of congressional appointments was established in 1852.

5. “Pell mell, slipping,” Lucky Bag, vol. 1, 1894, p. 35; Annapolis and West Point attendance figures from Report of the Secretary of the Navy, 1893 (Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1893), p. 197, and Annual Report of the Superintendent of the United States Military Academy, 1893 (Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1893), p. 4.

8. Thomas C. Hart, The Reminiscences of Thomas C. Hart (New York: Columbia University Oral History Project, 1972), p. 44.

9. Adams, Witness to Power, p. 11; The Class of 1897 had the highest percentage of flag officers of any class to graduate from Annapolis: Leahy, four admirals, six rear admirals, and a major general in the Marine Corps.

10. Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1979), pp. 154–55; “I hope [Roosevelt] has” and “too pugnacious,” p. 555; “trouble with Cuba,” p. 567.

11. Ibid., pp. 577–78; “To be prepared,” p. 569. Great Britain captured Cuba in the last days of the Seven Years War, but the island was returned under the terms of the 1763 Treaty of Paris.

13. The possibility of a coal bunker fire gains credibility when one considers that Oregon reportedly battled four simultaneous bunker fires on its voyage around South America. Given the difficulty stokers sometimes had in getting various grades of coal to burn in the fireboxes, one fireman wryly recorded in his diary, “It seemed as if there was one or more fires going all the time,” and “it really seemed as if the only place that coal would burn was in the bunkers” (G[eorge] W. Robinson Diary, MS 344, Special Collections and Archives Department, Nimitz Library, United States Naval Academy, p. 8.

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.

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.

20. “Destruction of Cervera’s Fleet,” in The Library of Historic Characters, pp. 259–266; WDL/Diary, July 3, 1898.

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.

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.

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.

6. Edgar Stanton Maclay, A History of the United States Navy from 1775 to 1901, vol. 3 (New York: D. Appleton, 1901), p. 364.

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).

10. Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex (New York: Random House, 2001), pp. 397–400.

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.

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.

14. “Do you realize,” Potter, Halsey, p. 98; Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, pp. 15–16.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

9. Adams, Witness to Power, pp. 45–47; “There was something,” WDL/Diary, March 22, 1923.

11. WDL/Diary, February 3, 1924. See chapter 23, note 11, for how Leahy’s views of Wilson changed.

13. Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1987), p. 46.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

10. Buell, Master of Sea Power, pp. 76–78; King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 195–204; Moffett to King, February 8, 1928, EJK/LC, Box 3; and “I hardly know” and “developments regarding,” King to Moffett, February 13, 1928, ibid.

11. Bureau of Navigation to King, July 7, 1928, and Bureau of Navigation to King, August 4, 1928, confirming July 28, 1928, dispatch, EJK/LC, Box 1; King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 206–7; “He learned to his disgust,” p. 206; “annoying period,” p. 207.

12. “love the job,” King, Fleet Admiral King, p. 207; “It seems to me” and “Admiral, I request,” Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 79; turning down the Saratoga, King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 213–14; “the finest ship,” Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 79.

14. J. J. “Jocko” Clark with Clark G. Reynolds, Carrier Admiral (New York: David McKay, 1967), p. 45.

15. Buell, Master of Sea Power, pp. 80–89; “Where the hell,” p. 84; “Everyone was out,” p. 84; “Ballentine, what is wrong,” p. 86; “Under King, ” p. 92; “You ought to be,” p. 89.

18. Potter, Halsey, pp. 123–25; Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, pp. 50–55; “buying and abandoning,” p. 54; “one of the most delightful,” p. 50; “I jumped at,” p. 52.

Chapter 10: First Stars

1. Adams, Witness to Power, pp. 52–53; “had an excellent chance,” p. 58. Six proposed battleships, numbered BB-49 through BB-54, whose hulls had already been laid before the Washington treaty, were never completed and were sold for scrap in 1923; a seventh—Washington (BB-47)—was sunk as a target in 1924.

2. The publication was the Roll Call, with sketches reproduced in WDL/Diary, undated, 1928.

6. London Naval Treaty, April 22, 1930, part 4, article 22, in Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America, 1776–1949, vol. 2, Multilateral, 1918–1930 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, 1968), p. 1070.

20. WDL/Diary, March 27, 1935. The “Propaganda Book” was a handbook “who’s who in the opposition” for Japanese naval officers, as well as a general puff piece for Japan’s own navy.

23. Potter, Bull Halsey, pp. 127–29; orders of May 28, 1934, and August 21, 1934, WFH/LC, Box 1; “What do you think,” Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 57.

26. LaChance to King, April 29, 1933, and King to LaChance, May 18, 1933, EJK/LC, Box 4.

Chapter 11: Projecting Power

9. “Leahy: Would-Be West Pointer Climbs to Top of Navy Ladder,” Newsweek, November 21, 1936, p. 12.

13. Harold L. Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes, vol. 2, The Inside Struggle, 1936–1939 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954), pp. 192–93.

14. WDL/Diary, September 21, 1937. The internal Chinese civil war between the Communists and Nationalists had been put on hold late in 1936 to counter this renewed Japanese threat. The infamous Rape of Nanking that followed the Japanese capture of Nanking continues to be controversial and a source of contention in Sino-Japanese relations.

16. Joseph C. Grew, Ten Years in Japan (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1944), p. 234; Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. 3, The Rising Sun in the Pacific (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948), pp. 16–18.

17. WDL/Diary, December 12 and 13, 1937. Years later, Time published an apocryphal account of that meeting which had FDR asking, “Bill what will it take to lick Japan?” Leahy supposedly replied, “Fifty billion dollars a year—and I’d like the job.” The president shook his head and replied, “It’s too much. Send for Cordell Hull”—meaning a diplomatic rather than a military solution (Time, May 28, 1945, p. 15).

18. “ships of the Fleet,” WDL/Diary, December 14, 1937; “we then blockaded,” Leahy, I Was There, p. 64.

20. Adams, Witness to Power, pp. 101–2; Brands, Traitor to His Class, pp. 495–96, 505; “subjected to a very severe,” WDL/Diary, December 31, 1937; Norman Alley’s footage, “China: Bombing of USS Panay Special Issue, 1937/12/12,” at bliptv, http://blip.tv/file/898740, accessed November 11, 2009, including the narration phrase “war-crazed culprits.”

22. King to Standley, September 28, 1936, EJK/LC, Box 6. One of the books King probably took with him on this cruise was Edwin A. Falk’s just-published Togo and the Rise of Japanese Sea Power; book order in King to Naval Institute Press, May 1, 1936, EJK/LC, Box 4.

23. King to McCain, September 12, 1936, EJK/LC, Box 6. McCain’s philosophical response was, “It is an ill wind that blows no one any good” (McCain to King, October 23, 1936, ibid.).

26. Andrews declined King’s proposal with a “My dear Rey” letter, Andrews to King, February 23, 1938, EJK/LC, Box 7.

30. Halsey to King, November 15, 1938, EJK/LC, Box 7. Later, the Essex-class carriers of 1943 introduced deck-edge elevators that created more flight deck space and kept the shuttling of planes between the flight deck and hangar deck out of the way of most flight operations.

34. Whitehill notes of conversation with King, undated, EJK/NHC/NWC, MS 37, Box 2, File Folder 1.

39. Leahy to Bloch, May 17, 1939, Charles Claude Bloch Papers, Box 2, Naval Historical Foundation Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

42. WDL/Diary, July 28, 1939; “The extraordinary qualities,” Distinguished Service Medal citation, insert in ibid., August 1, 1939.

44. “This brings to an end,” ibid.; “Bill, if we ever,” Life, September 28, 1942, p. 102.

Chapter 12: At War All but in Name

1. Nimitz to Bloch, March 23, 1939, Bloch Papers, Box 2; “While the Navy,” Bloch to Nimitz, April 14, 1939, ibid.

3. Nimitz to Bloch, November 17, 1939, Bloch Papers, Box 2; “Whether this is important,” Bloch to Nimitz, November 20, 1939, ibid.

6. Ibid., p. 125; see note at p. 571 for Buell’s analysis of FDR’s role in King’s assignment with Edison; temporary duty orders, March 23, 1940, EJK/LC, Box 1.

7. “peace-time psychology,” Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 125; “throw off a routine,” p. 127; temporary duty orders, May 14, 1940, EJK/LC, Box 1.

11. “simply would disappear” and “this streak,” Harold L. Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes, vol. 3, The Lowering Clouds, 1939–1941 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954), p. 206; “Leahy thinks,” p. 349. Certainly, no one ever questioned Leahy’s personal courage. Getting into his car outside the El Cortez Hotel in San Diego in the fall of 1932, Leahy encountered a masked man in the rear seat who pointed a pistol at him and told him to get in quietly. Leahy slammed the door shut and dodged behind an adjacent car to enter the hotel and immediately call police. “This was my first close contact with a bandit and of course being in America I was unarmed” (WDL/Diary, October 1932).

12. “The senior officers,” George C. Dyer, On the Treadmill to Pearl Harbor: The Memoirs of Admiral James O. Richardson (Washington, D.C.: Naval History Division, 1973), pp. 425, 435; WDL/Diary, October 8, 1940. Richardson later professed that his relief three months later came as “a real shock to me.” In his memoirs more than thirty years later, he was still frank in his opinion of FDR: “I was deeply disappointed in my detachment, yet there was some feeling of prospective relief, for I had never liked to work with people whom I did not trust, and I did not trust Franklin D. Roosevelt” (Dyer, On the Treadmill, p. 420).

13. Naval message, FDR to Leahy, November 17, 1940, insert in WDL/Diary; “I can leave,” Adams, Witness to Power, p. 5.

15. CINCLANT Serial 053, January 21, 1941, in Buell, Master of Sea Power, pp. 521–23.

17. Orders, February 12, 1941, EJK/LC, Box 1; Kimmel to Nimitz, January 12, 1941, CWN/NHHC, Series 13.

18. King to Knox, January 17, 1941, and Knox to King, January 27, 1941, EJK/LC, Box 12.

19. King to Nimitz, February 12, 1941, EJK/LC, Box 8; “I expect the officers,” King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 325–26.

22. Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3, The Grand Alliance (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950), p. 307.

24. Ibid., pp. 142–44; King, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 331–36; Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3, pp. 431–32, 443–44; “formed a very good opinion,” Robin Brodhurst, Churchill’s Anchor: The Biography of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound (Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Leo Cooper, 2000), p. 186, quoting Pound to Cunningham, September 3, 1941.

25. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Message to Congress on the Sinking of the Robin Moor, June 20, 1941,” in The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, comp. Samuel I. Rosenman, vol. 10 (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1950), p. 230.

28. King to Nimitz, November 10, 1941, EJK/LC, Box 8. King, Halsey, and Leahy were all awarded the Navy Cross during World War I for similar routine service. At that time, the medal functioned as a form of distinguished service award. In 1942, the decoration was changed to a combat-only honor.

Chapter 13: Searching for Scapegoats and Heroes

1. Albert A. Nofi, To Train the Fleet for War: The U.S. Navy Fleet Problems, 1923–1940 (Newport, R.I.: Naval War College Press, 2010), p. 231.

14. Potter, Nimitz, pp. 11–15; casualty reports, Gordon W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor (New York: Penguin, 1991), pp. 520, 539; Nimitz to Catherine Nimitz, December 20–24, 1941, CWN/NHHC, Section 14.

17. Knox to King, December 20, 1941, and Roosevelt to King, December 20, 1941), EJK/LC, Box 1; King, Fleet Admiral King, p. 352.

19. “hoping that history,” Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 161; “Well, what are,” Whitehill interview with King, August 14, 1949, EJK/NHC/NWC, Box 7, File Folder 13.

20. “What news” and “When you get,” Potter, Nimitz, p. 16; “must be very,” Nimitz to Catherine Nimitz, December 26–31, 1941, CWN/NHHC, Series 14.

21. For Nimitz’s views of command ashore and the inadequacies of the Japanese attack, see Potter, Nimitz, p. 18. Japanese reactions to the attack, including Yamamoto’s displeasure with Nagumo, are documented in Prange, At Dawn We Slept, p. 550.

22. Fred Borch and Daniel Martinez, Kimmel, Short, and Pearl Harbor: The Final Report Revealed (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2005), pp. 40–41. The Roberts Commission report was released to the public on January 24, 1942. Short retired on February 28 and Kimmel on March 1. Borch and Martinez note that there is no evidence to support claims that they were “forced into retirement.”

23. “because of one man,” Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, p. 82; Husband E. Kimmel, Admiral Kimmel’s Story (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1955), pp. 168–69, quoting Halsey to Kimmel, July 20, 1953.

24. King to Kimmel, December 17, 1941, and February 27, 1942, Husband Edward Kimmel Papers, 1907–1999, Accession Number 3800, Box 3, File Folder J-F 1942, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie.

26. “Random Notes,” EJK/LC, Box 35. King further wrote, “I again repeat that I have never been able to understand how or why F.D.R. could fire Admiral Stark without doing the same to General Marshall. In my opinion one could not possibly be more suspect than the other.”

27. Jacobs to Kimmel, January 15, 1942, Kimmel Papers, Box 3, File Folder J-F 1942. This letter on Bureau of Navigation stationery is signed by Jacobs. A copy of the letter, with no underlying stationery but initialed “CWN” in Nimitz’s hand in the signature block, can be found in CWN/NHHC, Series 13, causing some confusion as to the author.

28. William Manchester, American Caesar, Douglas MacArthur, 1880–1964 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1978), pp. 205–12; Prange, At Dawn We Slept, p. 591; MacArthur recorded his own version: “Our bombers were slow in taking off and… our force was simply too small to smash the odds against them” (Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences [New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964], p. 117).

29. Eisenhower, January 13, 1942, in The Eisenhower Diaries, ed. Robert H. Ferrell (New York: Norton, 1981), p. 43.

Chapter 14: Spread Thin

1. Edwin T. Layton, “And I Was There”: Pearl Harbor and Midway—Breaking the Secrets (New York: William Morrow, 1985), pp. 74, 275; “certain key members,” Potter, Nimitz, p. 21.

5. Ibid., pp. 94, 96. Halsey was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for the Marshall operation. When Nimitz sent word to Halsey of the honor, he “quoted with pleasure” Secretary of the Navy Knox’s message “to Vice Admiral William Henry [sic] Halsey Junior U S Navy… for his brilliant and audacious attack against Marshall and Gilbert Islands….,” CINCPAC to Halsey, February 11, 1942, WFH/LC, Box 1). How Knox managed to get Halsey’s middle name wrong is another matter. Later, the Enterprise and its crew were awarded a Presidential Unit Citation for their exploits in the first year of the war as the “galloping ghost of the Oahu coast.”

7. Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 178. Stark’s role in wartime strategy, particularly with the British, has been traditionally downplayed. For a British perspective suggesting a greater importance of his role, see Brodhurst, Churchill’s Anchor: The Biography of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Chapter 15: Deciding the Course

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.

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.

11. King/Nimitz Pacific Conferences, minutes, April 25, 1942, NRS 1972-22, Department of the Navy, Naval History and Heritage Command.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

46. “It has been,” Leahy, I Was There, p. 111; Miles, “American Strategy,” p. 120.

Chapter 16: Fighting the Japanese—and MacArthur

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.

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.

11. Pogue, Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, p. 382; “Narrative,” p. 10, Ghormley Papers.

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).

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.

23. Nimitz to R. L. Ghormley, Jr. [son], January 19, 1961, Ghormley Papers, Box 18, File Folder b.

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.

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” reference 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.).

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).

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.

27. Forrest C. Pogue, Marshall: Organizer of Victory, 1943–1945 (New York: Viking, 1973), p. 200.

30. “hours of argument,” Alanbrooke, War Diaries, p. 401; “Hannibal and Napoleon,” Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 335.

36. For an overview of World War II in Alaska, see Walter R. Borneman, Alaska: Saga of a Bold Land (New York: HarperCollins, 2003).

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.

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.

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.

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.

Chapter 18: Take Care, My Boy

2. Chester Nimitz, Jr., to Nimitz, February 7, 1944, CWN/NHHC, Series 2, Box 26; Blair, Silent Victory, pp. 589–92.

4. Manning Kimmel to Husband E. Kimmel, December 18, 1941, Kimmel Papers, Box 2, File Folder “Correspondence, September–December, 1941.”

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.

13. Blair, Silent Victory, pp. 241–42, 412, 603–4; see also John McCain, Faith of My Fathers (New York: Random House, 1999).

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, 1974, 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.

Chapter 19: Driving It Home

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.

14. Roosevelt, radio address, June 5, 1944, in Public Papers and Addresses, 1944–45 volume, pp. 147–52.

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.

25. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, pp. 189–90. Pronunciation of Nimitz’s name is from Potter, Halsey, p. 266.

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.

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).

Chapter 20: The Crippling Blow: Submarines or Airpower?

3. Charles A. Lockwood, Sink ’Em All: Submarine Warfare in the Pacific (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1951), p. 85.

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.

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).

Chapter 21: Halsey’s Luck

2. James M. Merrill, A Sailor’s Admiral: A Biography of William F. Halsey (New York: Crowell, 1976), p. 120.

6. Roosevelt, July 11, 1944, in Complete Presidential Press Conferences, vol. 24, pp. 24–25.

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.

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.

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.

26. Halsey to King via Nimitz, November 13, 1944, Action Report Third Fleet, p. 2, WFH/LC, Box 35.

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.

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:

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!

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.

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).

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

30. Whitehill interview with King, July 29, 1950, EJK/NHC/NWC, Box 7, File Folder 18.

Chapter 23: Interim President

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.

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.

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 nothing 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.

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.

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.”

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).

26. George M. Elsey, Oral History Interview, Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, Independence, Mo., July 7, 1970, pp. 334–35.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.”

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.

23. “starved the Japanese,” King, Fleet Admiral King, p. 621; “didn’t like,” Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 497.

28. Ibid., p. 389; Potter, Halsey, pp. 347–48; “I wonder,” Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 498.

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.

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.

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.

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.

8. For Nimitz’s role as CNO, see Steven T. Ross, “Chester William Nimitz,” in Love, Chiefs of Naval Operations, and Jeffrey G. Barlow, From Hot War to Cold: The U.S. Navy and National Security Affairs, 1945–1955 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2009). In Nimitz, Potter gives an anecdote-filled portrayal of the admiral’s retirement years based on interviews with Catherine Nimitz and family members, including “To me, he has” (p. 472).

9. Adams, Witness to Power, p. 307. Leahy repeatedly expressed his concerns over the Middle East; see, for example, WDL/Diary, October 10, November 5, and November 29, 1947, and the list of concerns in May 1948.

11. WDL/Diary, inserts: Leahy to Truman, September 20, 1948, offering to resign immediately; Truman to Leahy, September 23, 1948, handwritten letter; Truman to Leahy, September 27, 1948, reiterating the sentiments of his handwritten letter (“My position and my feeling toward you has never changed and it never will”). When Leahy finally stepped down as chief of staff, the Washington Post called the move “a victory for civilian supremacy” and noted, “There is no need for the post in peacetime. That Mr. Truman kept Admiral Leahy at his side after he had exhausted Leahy’s rich store of information was merely a testament to Leahy’s companionability and to Mr. Truman’s loyalty” (Washington Post, March 29, 1949).

15. Roland N. Smoot, The Reminiscences of Vice Admiral Roland N. Smoot, U.S. Navy (Ret.) (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1972), p. 18.

16. New York Herald Tribune Book Review, March 19, 1950, p. 5. In his review of I Was There, Ferdinand Kuhn wrote, “Admiral Leahy was always something of a puzzle to the public in his White House days” (Washington Post, March 19, 1950).

23. E. B. Potter, Admiral Arleigh Burke: A Biography (New York: Random House, 1990), p. 260.

24. This Nimitz quote appears in many places, but it may have been first published in Boys’ Life, the magazine of the Boy Scouts, the month before his death (Chester W. Nimitz, “My Way of Life: The Navy,” as told to Andrew Hamilton, Boys’ Life, January 1966, p. 56).

26. William Gordon Beecher rose to vice admiral but was also a published songwriter of some note. This version of “Nimitz and Halsey and Me” is from Time, October 22, 1945, after Nimitz recited it at a welcome-home dinner at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria.

Chapter 1: Leahy