The common perception of an historical figure is far more influential than reality itself. A sad example of that paradigm is Frank Jack Fletcher, an obscure rear admiral at the start of World War II who remained little known during that conflict despite his part in three vital victories in 1942. That year Admiral King restricted publicity of top naval tactical commanders for security reasons. The only exception was Admiral Halsey, dubbed “Bull” by exuberant reporters. The curtain of anonymity started to lift in 1943, and soon national magazines regularly featured articles on celebrated admirals, notably not Fletcher. His most prominent coverage in the wartime press came that year in a piece on the Battle of the Coral Sea written by Fletcher Pratt, a breezy popular historian well connected to Secnav’s Office of Public Relations. Pratt quaintly described Fletcher, whom he evidently never met, as “an old sea dog out of Admiral Benbow’s time,” hardly a ringing endorsement in a modern technological war. More ominously, both Pratt and reporter Gilbert Cant completely omitted Fletcher in their 1943 accounts of Midway, but designated Raymond Spruance as the sole U.S. carrier commander in that battle. (Pratt likewise substituted Thomas Kinkaid for Fletcher in his brief treatment of the Battle of the Eastern Solomons.) In 1944 Pratt incorporated his articles, sans corrections regarding Fletcher, into the book The Navy’s War, whose credibility Secretary Knox’s handsome foreword further enhanced. Thus certain powers in Washington grudgingly allowed Fletcher public credit for Coral Sea (they could not plausibly give it to anyone else) but denied him any role in the ultimate triumph at Midway. In this regard it is useful to recall what Rear Adm. Edwin Layton said in 1983: “People on King’s staff who were jealous of Fletcher.” Fletcher did write the brief essay on Midway (Aubrey Fitch handled the one on Coral Sea) for the unofficial 1946 photographic history Battle Stations! Your Navy in Action, and Capt. Walter Karig’s 1947 Battle Report Pacific War: Middle Phase presented Fletcher in a favorable light. That represented the pinnacle of his popular reputation. Thus Fletcher, unlike Halsey and to a lesser extent Spruance, emerged from World War II with virtually no public persona. However, three independent but closely cooperating groups sharpened their knives and determined to fill that lack with unflattering portrayals of their own.2
The Marine Corps never forgave Fletcher for what it considered despicable behavior in not saving Wake Island and later abandoning Guadalcanal. He came to epitomize the resentment the Corps felt toward the dominant partner, the U.S. Navy. Brig. Gen. Samuel Griffith, former marine raider and an historian, reflected their general attitude. “Haul Ass’ Fletcher, that’s what we used to call him. Why, that was his best maneuver. He could break all records getting away from something he didn’t like.” In 1943 staff officers of the First Marine Division created the unofficial “George Medal” (“Let George Do It”) that symbolized their frustration over the navy’s perceived failure to support them at Guadalcanal. The obverse depicted an admiral’s hand dropping a hot potato to a marine. “In the original design,” wrote marine historian Henry I. Shaw, “the sleeve bore the stripes of a vice admiral intended to be either” Ghormley or Fletcher, “but the final medal diplomatically omitted this identification.” Even so, the intent remained completely clear. Eventually even Ghormley was rehabilitated. If not agreeing with his decisions, Griffith’s 1963 Guadalcanal book showed remarkable sympathy for Comsopac, and Samuel Eliot Morison already asserted in 1949, “Admiral Ghormley did as well as anyone could have done,” and that “he was the victim of circumstances.” That left Fletcher the only unredeemable naval villain of Guadalcanal.3
Given such outright animosity, it is understandable that Marine Corps historians would not show much objectivity toward Fletcher, though to their delight, they did not have to spearhead this particular assault. Responding to complaints by Rear Adm. Milo Draemel over criticisms of Fletcher in the 1947 Marine Corps monograph The Defense of Wake, its author, Lt. Col. Robert Heinl, wrote his boss Brig. Gen. William E. Riley: “Morison’s third volume (which has just been cleared for publication by the Secretary of the Navy) contains a devastatingly critical treatment of the Wake relief attempt, in which neither Admiral Fletcher nor Admiral Pye is spared. Considering that the Marines on Wake were the ultimately aggrieved parties of these admirals’ actions, we have been sparing and meticulous almost to the point of gentleness.” Morison’s subsequent attack on Fletcher at Guadalcanal was equally “devastating,” leading Griffith to chortle: “There wasn’t much left of old ‘Haul Ass’ when Sam Morison got through with him.”4
In 1942 President Roosevelt himself chose Professor Morison of Harvard University to write a “contemporaneous” History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Probably no other nautical-minded historian of the era combined outstanding excellence in research with a sparkling, eminently readable style. Commissioned into the Naval Reserve, Morison received virtual carte blanche, “not to be censored” except in the “necessity of safeguarding information which might endanger national security,” nor forbidden from exercising “free criticism of officers.” In 1947 Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal proclaimed in his foreword to Morison’s volume 1 that it “is in no sense an official history,” and Morison himself was solely responsible for its contents. By default if nothing else, Morison became the U.S. Navy’s voice interpreting World War II. His work constituted, according to Rear Adm. Richard Bates, the “official un-official history.”5
Morison made the most of his unparalleled opportunity by traveling extensively to battle fronts to collect documents and interview participants. He saw combat on several occasions. Yet he did not get out to the Pacific theater until 1943, when the Allies irrevocably took the offensive. It was much more difficult for him to collect sources from the earlier period and really appreciate what it was like in 1941–42. For reasons never made clear, Morison took a strong dislike to Fletcher, whom he never met during the war itself. Heinl correctly described Morison’s tone toward Fletcher in volume 3, published in 1948, as unusually harsh. Whether it was also just is addressed in chapters 2 and 3 of the present work. In 1951 Opnav solicited an official review of volume 3 from Vice Adm. Vincent Murphy, one of the Cincpac War Plans officers directly responsible for planning the relief of Wake. Murphy averred Morison’s treatment did “grave injustice to Admiral Fletcher,” and “some of it, both in language and in what is represented as fact, appears to be an almost studied attempt to discredit and smear this officer.” Resonating within Opnav, Murphy’s reproach forced Morison to moderate his tone somewhat in future printings of volume 3 and address a few minor errors. The effect was more cosmetic than substantive, but the damage to Fletcher was already done. Morison never did acknowledge, despite Murphy’s authoritative testimony, that he (and Heinl) in fact misrepresented the actual circumstances behind the attempted relief of Wake. Nor did Morison ever rethink his overall sarcastic opinion of Fletcher that reached its crescendo in his discussion of the Guadalcanal landings and Savo.6
While Morison compiled his early volumes, Bates, the third major Fletcher critic, entered the lists. Tasked in 1946 by the CNO, Fleet Admiral Nimitz, to “study and evaluate” the naval battles of World War II, Admiral Spruance, the new president of the Naval War College, personally chose “Rafe” Bates, a conscientious researcher and naval intellectual, to run the project. Proud of his “outspoken attitude toward command failures,” Bates explained that these battles revealed “many, many errors in command on both sides, and I am pointing them out as I see them, without any malice of any kind.” His purpose was “solely to improve the professional judgment of the Navy.” Bates never intended to write objective history, but a “critical analysis,” because “without criticism the studies would have no value.” Yet he often went much too far. Vice Adm. David C. Richardson, formerly one of his assistants in the Analysis Section, recalled in 1992 that his old boss “was inclined to be critical anyway; it was an ego thing. If he could find a little bit of criticism, and in almost anything that anybody does there’s room for some criticism, then he would condemn.” As noted, Bates’s 1947 treatment of the Battle of the Coral Sea enthusiastically employed hindsight to second-guess and nitpick virtually every decision Fletcher made, though without the comprehensive U.S. and Japanese sources required for such a conclusive assessment. Much of what Bates postulated was simply wrong. Morison relied greatly on Bates’s findings. They became good friends and compared notes.7
In compiling a “critical analysis” of the Battle of Midway, Bates faced a real conflict of interest. Spruance, his direct superior at the Naval War College, was also one of the principal Midway commanders. In the years since Pratt and Cant excluded all mention of Fletcher in that battle, a virtual cult grew around Spruance, whose superb leadership of the amphibious offensives that won the war in the Pacific ranked him arguably the finest U.S. naval combat commander of World War II. Spruance’s splendid personal qualities of high intelligence, wisdom, and modesty engendered great admiration and loyalty, none more than from Bates and Morison. It seemed to them, and to many others, that the brilliance Spruance showed in the many difficult campaigns of 1943–45 must have likewise brought about the stunning success at Midway. Pratt’s 1946 book Fleet Against Japan (foreword by Nimitz) decisively dubbed Spruance the “victor of Midway,” an encomium Spruance personally refused to accept. Bates’s own Midway analysis, completed in 1948, rendered Fletcher just lukewarm endorsement but accorded Spruance only copious praise. The same was true for Morison’s volume 4 (1949), which relied heavily on Bates. Indeed, Bates’s penultimate version was even more laudatory of Spruance. Richardson recalled how Bates “was being very critical of all sorts of actions by people in command other than Spruance—unwarranted criticisms.” To the disgust of his assistants Bates reworked their draft “to extol Spruance all the more.” Bates took his rewrite for final approval to Spruance, who, according to Richardson, “wouldn’t have any part of Bates’s glorification of him” and directed that he revise it. Given how flattering even the final product was, Spruance must have rejected a virtual hagiography of himself.8
Bates and Cdr. Walter Innis next tackled the disaster at Savo. The end piece of the Watchtower invasions of Guadalcanal and Tulagi proved especially fertile ground for Bates’s form of critical analysis. Not surprisingly Fletcher, because he supposedly withdrew the carriers prematurely with no justification and thereby jeopardized the whole operation, emerged as Bates’s chief, but by no means only, blunderer. At the same time Morison’s volume 5 (1949) concurred in judging Fletcher’s behavior as craven prior to Savo and sharply criticized his role in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. The appearance of Bates’s classified Savo study in 1950 hard on the heels of Morison’s volumes 3, 4, and 5, along with the official Marine Corps monographs on Wake Island (1947) and Guadalcanal (1949), completed the derogatory image of Fletcher from which virtually every substantial criticism is derived. Completing their projects with such amazing speed precluded not only extensive interviews of essential participants, but also prevented the necessary distance for reflection and a measured analysis of indispensable voluminous sources such as the dispatch files. Without even a hint of an open mind, the triad of critics had already prejudged Fletcher, and by wielding hindsight with the delicacy of a battle-ax they fashioned their histories to fit a foregone conclusion.
Fletcher for his own part cooperated with Bates and Morison in the initial stages of their work. In early 1947 Spruance provided drafts of the Naval War College’s Coral Sea analysis to Fletcher and Fitch for comment. Bates waited uneasily for their responses, acknowledging Fitch “should not have much to say, as he does not come in for much comment either way, but Admiral Fletcher may have some feelings.” Fitch evidently never responded, but Fletcher begged off, explaining to Spruance that he had “neither time nor proper facilities” to conduct a careful review. “While not entirely agreeing in all conclusions of the War College pamphlet particularly where they have described my motives and other mental processes,” he considered “it generally correct as to effects and logical as to conclusions.” Contacted by Morison regarding his Midway research, Fletcher replied in December 1947: “I dislike to attempt to reconstruct these actions from memory years afterward, with no records at hand and no time for proper study and preparation of a statement.” Nevertheless he was “glad to assist you in any way and am happy to say that the principal points you found confusing, if not the details, are quite clear in my mind.” All Fletcher had was memory, because he tragically retained no papers from his 1941–42 carrier commands. Everything prior to Midway, indeed all of his personal files from September 1939, went down in the Yorktown. His Guadalcanal papers later disappeared because of the unusual nature of his relief as Comcrupac and CTF-11, when King did not permit him to return to Pearl for the usual change of command, but had him report directly to Seattle. In the press of wartime events Fletcher never retrieved his papers. They were simply destroyed as successive commanders cleaned out the files. It was a terrible blow to the defense of his reputation. In 1950 in reply to a proposal from Opnav for a detailed critique of Morison’s volume 4, Fletcher called it, “An undertaking entirely beyond my capabilities at the present time.” Such a project “would require my entire attention over a long period of time as well as my access to all records of correspondence, logs, communications, and so forth.” Instead of a bitter crusade to reclaim his reputation, Fletcher preferred quiet retirement at his Maryland farm Araby. In 1964 he told his friend Vice Adm. William “Poco” Smith, “For years I have refused to commit myself to prospective authors about WWII,” because “I had no notes or data and my memory is so bad that I was afraid I would give false information.” Even so, the misrepresentation of his war record was painful. Admiral Dyer recalled Fletcher “was a bit disturbed by what Morison and others had said about his actions or inactions and thought that they were uninformed of the instructions under which he was operating. He would say ‘They’re just damn ignorant.’”9
Unfortunately the “ignorant” ultimately included Fletcher’s once indispensable champion, Fleet Admiral Nimitz, whose opinion of Fletcher eroded dramatically by late 1944 when he tried unsuccessfully to replace him as Comnorpac. In 1946 Nimitz changed his mind regarding the carrier command at Midway, stating officially that Fletcher had only “local command” (whatever that meant), whereas Spruance exercised “local tactical command” of both TF-16 and TF-17 and thus masterminded the victory. Of course, that completely contradicted what Nimitz declared to King on 20 June 1942: “Fletcher was senior task force commander in area and responsible for activities Task Forces 16 and 17.” Moreover, Spruance himself never gave any orders to TF-17. One wonders whether Nimitz’s new perception of Fletcher resulted from his profound respect and affection for Spruance and his close association and friendship with Kelly Turner, who was Fletcher’s chief vilifier. As shown in his work with historian E. B. Potter, Nimitz also came fully to accept the case made by the Fletcher critics. In 1963 he commented on Griffith’s history of Guadalcanal: “I am sorry that so many of the Navy participants are dead—and cannot read The Battle for Guadalcanal. I am sure that Halsey, Turner, Ghormley, and many others would heap high praise and would not want to change one word.” Significantly Nimitz did not mention Fletcher, who was very much alive. Griffith, of course, was one of Fletcher’s severest critics and flayed him in his book.10
Only one of Fletcher’s peers stood up for him publicly against the tidal wave of castigation. In 1964 Poco Smith rather reluctantly decided to write his book Midway: Turning Point of the Pacific primarily because he felt strongly that Morison did not do Fletcher “credit at either Midway or Coral Sea.” However, Smith was no uncritical admirer of his friend Fletcher, explaining to Vice Adm. Elliott Buckmaster in 1966: “Now, Fletcher was not the smartest Task Force Commander of the war. I admit that I found him selfish at times. But he carried the full responsibility both at Coral Sea and Midway—until he turned over to Spruance after shifting to my Flagship. . . . When Fletcher turned over to Spruance, the battle was won, but we did not know it.” Another of Fletcher’s few defenders within the navy was Capt. Marvin E. Butcher, who in 1987 wrote the article “Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, Pioneer Warrior or Gross Sinner?” for the Naval War College Review. Butcher came down strongly on the side of “pioneer warrior,” emphasizing how Fletcher had to adapt to a “new technology” of naval warfare. Butcher cautioned his fellow officers that they should “hope” to “perform as well” as Fletcher, “Should we be so tested at the onset of a war for national survival.” A few historians such as Robert Cressman and myself also wrote books and articles that strongly supported Fletcher, as did a biography by Stephen D. Regan. In 1999 Fletcher was inducted into the Carrier Aviation Hall of Fame on board the USS Yorktown (CV-10). Yet as demonstrated by the most recent judgments quoted in the introduction to this book, little real progress has been made toward his restoration.11
The dilemma for those who perceived the unfair treatment of Fletcher was that even they accepted the basic accuracy of Morison, Bates, and the marine historians, despite the manifest lack of objectivity. Therefore one could seemingly only make excuses for Fletcher. However, he no longer requires apologists. Newly discovered primary sources and reinterpretation of previously known documents not only question the basic assessments of the critics, but also elucidate key factual errors in their work. What they wrote is mirrored in a comment in 1869 by former Confederate Maj. Campbell Brown, stepson of Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell and a member of his staff. To the postwar accusations that Ewell’s failure to attack Cemetery Ridge on the evening of 1 July 1863 cost the victory at Gettysburg, Brown responded: “The discovery that this lost us the battle is one of those frequently-recurring but tardy strokes of military genius of which one hears long after the minute circumstances that rendered them at the time impracticable, are forgotten.” In the postwar criticisms of Fletcher’s operations, it is amazing how so many crucial “minute circumstances” came to be “forgotten” or ignored.12
The attack on Pearl Harbor transformed the aircraft carrier into the most powerful weapon afloat, the principal arbiter of success or failure in the naval war. Carriers led offensives, particularly in the absence of supporting land-based air, and were the principal means of defense against enemy carriers. For the very first time in naval history, fleets fought at great distances without the opposing ships ever coming within sight of one another. A task force had to be prepared, often with little or no warning, to deliver or absorb furious carrier air attacks, “pulses of firepower” according to one historian of naval tactics.13 The battle, and effectively the whole naval campaign, could literally be lost in a span of minutes. Neither Imperial Japan nor the United States opened the war with many carriers, and the admirals who led them wielded precious assets not readily replaced. The desperate campaigns of the first year expended the carriers and aviators of both sides at a fearsome rate. Up to November 1942 the Japanese lost six of a dozen first-line carriers and light carriers, while four of six big U.S. carriers were sunk. Such carnage largely neutralized carrier participation in the naval war until the late summer of 1943, when the U.S. Navy began adding many new flattops. The next actual carrier battle did not occur until June 1944, by which time the hugely superior American naval forces were literally unstoppable.
In December 1941 Japan went to war with the preponderance of carrier and naval strength in general and swept across a vast amount of territory. However, once the U.S. carriers were committed to battle in May 1942 (as opposed to hit-and-run raids), the IJN won no more strategic victories. By November 1942, Japan’s naval spearhead was blunted and the empire irretrievably committed to the defense in the Pacific. During nearly that whole period, Fletcher was the principal American carrier commander in action, leading the task forces in three of the first four carrier battles, during which six Japanese carriers were sunk for the loss of two U.S. carriers. That was when U.S. equipment was sometimes inferior, its aviators inexperienced, and the IJN never more skilled or dangerous. Expected to surmount steep odds if necessary to thwart the enemy, Fletcher was also strictly enjoined to preserve his force, for the nation could not afford to lose it. Just surviving a close engagement with Japanese carriers was a signal achievement, let alone the seizing of and retaining the strategic advantage in every battle. Wise in hindsight and severely discounting the friction of warfare, Fletcher’s detractors held unreasonably high expectations of just what could be achieved under those circumstances. They believed that except for his incompetence, excessive caution, and obsession with refueling, the U.S. carriers would simply have overwhelmed the enemy, just as in 1944–45 when American naval superiority was decisive. “But,” as U. S. Grant wrote in his memoirs, “my later experience has taught me two lessons: first, that things seem plainer after the events have occurred; second, that the most confident critics are generally those who know the least about the matter criticised.”14
Displaying flexibility and nerve, Fletcher performed at Coral Sea, Midway, and even at Guadalcanal better than anyone could have reasonably anticipated. In light of the latest interpretation, Captain Butcher’s label of “pioneer warrior” is certainly the most appropriate. Like other commanders forced by a superior enemy onto the defensive in the opening campaigns of a war, Fletcher had to carefully feel his way while he rapidly assimilated a new operational art. To adopt, as the critics demanded, a full-out, aggressive approach at that time and with such limited resources would have required a commander as talented as Nelson for just a chance of victory. Otherwise, total disaster was far more likely. In retrospect it appears Fletcher’s well-measured style of command was actually the most appropriate for that particular time of peril, when the Pacific Fleet was outnumbered and operating on the tactical defensive even during its Guadalcanal counteroffensive. Cautious when necessary, Fletcher proved decisive when the situation called for it. As Admiral Murphy observed in 1951, “Whatever [Fletcher’s] failures may have been, a reluctance to fight was not one of them.” In fact, Fletcher came to epitomize the observation of Sun Tzu that the commander who knows when to fight and not to fight will be victorious.15
It is fascinating to consider why Fletcher, a well-seasoned naval officer but carrier neophyte lacking a technical background in naval aviation, developed or at least recognized such advanced concepts for carrier employment. He also fostered the creativity that led, in particular, to the Yorktown’s remarkably effective performance. The fundamental reason is that Fletcher did not already think he knew it all. Thus he was particularly receptive to advice from the younger aviator leaders, who offered fresh, cutting-edge opinions based on the latest operational flying experience. That certainly was not always the case with many senior aviators, pioneers and JCLs alike, who proved reluctant to discard years of hard-earned but obsolete aviation lore in favor of innovative new ideas. That drawback was especially evident in the climactic Battle of Midway. With much that still is mysterious, Marc Mitscher’s dramatic failure with the Hornet remains incomprehensible in contrast to his later splendid performance in 1944–45 at the head of the Fast Carrier Task Force. Yet even with regard to 1944 one close observer, Adm. John S. Thach, recalled that Mitscher was “an old-time aviator” who “figured that he had the experience within himself and he never took to new ideas or wasn’t able to recognize them as well as [Vice Adm. John] McCain.” Mitscher “had his own convictions and he didn’t see the need to hear from anybody else much.” Likewise Miles Browning, who bungled the planning of the great TF-16 strike on 4 June, epitomized the know-it-all attitude to the extent of actively discouraging direct exchanges between Spruance and the Enterprise group and squadron commanders.16
In the chaotic first year of the Pacific War, when basic carrier doctrine was only being hammered out, perhaps the common sense of a prudent and pragmatic non-aviator like Fletcher trumped purely technical expertise. Of course, the ideal commander should possess both attributes, but in 1942 such paragons were not available while Fletcher and those like him held the line in the Pacific. The advent of the younger aviator admirals who were far more qualified in carriers meant that Fletcher’s time leading carrier task forces would be brief. Those who found fault with Fletcher perceived in him a lack of offensive spirit—an impression carefully nurtured by King, Turner, Frederick Sherman, Morison, and Bates. As historian Martin Stephens said of the Royal Navy in The Fighting Admirals, much was forgiven a commander if it was thought he was aggressive. With Fletcher, truly a fighting admiral who never lost a battle, nothing was forgiven and very little applauded.17