A brief review of Fletcher’s naval career after November 1942 is useful especially to illustrate his status with his superiors and peers. From headquarters in Seattle, Fletcher supervised the many activities of the Thirteenth Naval District, covering the states of the Pacific Northwest and the territory of Alaska. He also ran the Northwest Sea Frontier that protected shipping in coastal waters in cooperation with Canadian authorities and aided in the effort to transport huge amounts of lend-lease matériel from the West Coast to Vladivostok in the USSR’s Maritime Province. His top priority in early 1943 was to build up bases and resources in Alaska to sustain the offensive of Admiral Kinkaid’s North Pacific Force against Attu and Kiska, the two Japanese footholds in the Aleutians. In May Attu fell to Kinkaid, cutting off Kiska, which Japan secretly evacuated in July prior to the Allied invasion in August.1
Fletcher watched enviously from long distance as the major Pacific offensives began to unfold. After the Japanese evacuated Guadalcanal in February 1943, Admiral Halsey’s Third Fleet ground its way up the central Solomons to gain position from which to strike the great fortress of Rabaul. To westward, Vice Adm. Arthur S. Carpender’s Seventh Fleet ran the amphibious operations of the Southwest Pacific Area. General MacArthur regrouped his forces following the capture in January of the stronghold at Buna and prepared to assault Lae and Salamaua farther up the New Guinea coast. If Bill Halsey was the navy’s favorite warhorse, Vice Adm. Raymond Spruance, the Pacific Fleet chief of staff, emerged as one of its brightest leaders and Nimitz’s closest associate. On 5 August Spruance took command of the Central Pacific Force and the task of seizing the Gilbert Islands (Operation Galvanic), the first stop in the direct thrust toward Japan. He retrieved his old friend Rear Adm. Kelly Turner from the South Pacific to handle amphibious operations.
To someone who craved action as much as Fletcher, shore duty in the States was purgatory. Morison declared that after being relieved of his carrier task force in the fall of 1942 Fletcher “received commands more commensurate with his abilities.” Whether or not one agrees with Morison’s low assessment of those “abilities,” the question remains what else Fletcher might have done. Even had he taken TF-11 (Saratoga) back to the South Pacific in November 1942, his time in the carriers would have been short, certainly not beyond the spring of 1943. Not being a naval aviator told decisively against him. So did his age and exalted rank of vice admiral. Younger aviator rear admirals lined up to lead the carriers being constructed in stateside yards. Their boss in the Pacific Fleet was never going to be Fletcher. As he realistically told Colonel Maas in August 1942, he “does not believe he is the man to run an air show,” although he did a remarkably good job as a stand-in for the aviation leaders, who were either busy elsewhere or too junior for such a carrier command.2
What possible billets were available for Fletcher? On 1 July 1943 the U.S. Navy had eighteen vice admirals. One was a bureau chief, four served on staffs, five (including Ghormley and Fletcher) commanded sea frontiers, three held administrative commands (service force, air force) within fleets, two ran amphibious fleets, two were area commanders, and one led the air force within an area. In August 1943, well aware of the limited number of jobs for vice admirals, Fletcher requested demotion to rear admiral if it could mean a combat command at sea. Nimitz gently replied that he “appreciated the spirit” in which Fletcher made his offer but had nothing for him in the Pacific Fleet for the next six to eight months, “Unless we have some unfortunate casualties.” He suggested Fletcher relay to King and Admiral Jacobs (chief of Bupers) “the same thought that you expressed in your letter to me, on the chance that casualties will occur in my area.” That did not sound too promising.3
On 24 September 1942 Fletcher compiled for Nimitz his conception of carrier tactics, premised on “the past nine months” of “operating with from one to three carrier task forces against Japanese Naval and Air forces.” In that time, “Many lessons and new ideas have been gained.” Certainly no one else accrued more experience leading carriers in battle. Nimitz, eager to standardize carrier tactics, passed Fletcher’s analysis to Halsey for comment. Responding on 9 October, Halsey concurred with most of Fletcher’s positions, in particular that the high command repeatedly placed the carriers in jeopardy by employing them defensively off Guadalcanal. On 9 December Nimitz forwarded Fletcher’s letter, Halsey’s response, and extracts from action reports of the 26 October Santa Cruz battle to all Pacific Fleet aviation type commanders, task force commanders, carrier captains, and others, including Noyes, Mitscher, and Buckmaster, who led carriers in battle. The “enclosures present comment and opinion on many features of carrier employment, together with recommendations covering material, based on the latest experience of Carrier Task Forces.” The “lessons learned must be given earliest application to future operations of this nature, and steps must be taken to improve material conditions so far as possible.” The “current lull in carrier activity occasioned by our losses” made it “an appropriate time to crystalize service thought” regarding carrier tactics.4
Comairpac Towers summarized the many responses for Cincpac in April 1943. Easily the most contentious issue remained multi-carrier task forces. Fletcher recommended, as often noted, that carrier task forces must stay together for “mutual support and protection.” Ahead of most aviation professionals, he recognized that radar and increased numbers of fighters rendered invalid the old fear of massing carriers. Halsey, on the other hand, held to the old theory that concentrating the carriers was “fraught with grave danger” and ran counter to prewar doctrine. In spring 1942 he compromised to the extent of organizing TF-16 into what he later called the “ideal carrier task force” of “two carriers tactically concentrated until air attack is actually approaching and tactically re-concentrated immediately the attack has withdrawn.” Halsey cautioned, “More than one carrier task force [i.e., two carriers] should not normally be operated in close proximity; the general thumb rule being that at least twice the visibility separate the forces at all times.” No clear consensus emerged, with opinion almost equally divided between concentration and dispersion.5
Rear Adm. Frederick “Ted” Sherman, the greatest advocate of incorporating more than one carrier in the same screen, argued that as many as four carriers could thus be accommodated. “Dispersion at sea permits the enemy to concentrate his attack on single units and defeat us in detail.” As Halsey’s senior carrier task force commander, Sherman profited from the “lull” in early 1943 to experiment with running carriers in the same screen. Capt. H. S. Duckworth, Sherman’s chief of staff, explained that his boss “convinced Admiral Halsey the multi carrier idea was correct & he allowed us to demonstrate combined simultaneous air operations on signal from the flagship.” The key problem was coordinating simultaneous flight operations from different carriers, but Sherman and Duckworth discovered that individual flattops did not have to point directly into the wind when launching and recovering aircraft. “It was sufficient to have the carrier face in the general direction of the wind and that a variance of 30° over the bow could be tolerated.” Aided by Cdr. Robert Dixon, the air operations officer, they also worked out rendezvous procedures so that the air groups did not interfere with each other. Sherman urged the creation of “more or less permanent” task forces of two or three carriers that trained together. “It is not enough to throw two single-carrier task forces together on the eve of battle. Their combat efficiency as a team will be much higher if they have trained and practiced together until team work becomes automatic.” His goal was to create a standardized doctrine so that different carriers could swiftly integrate into a powerful task force.6
In May 1943 Sherman brought the Enterprise to Pearl Harbor, where he “continued to develop the necessary formations and tactics for multi-carrier groups.” That was timely because the new Essex soon arrived, followed by sisters Yorktown (CV-10) and Lexington (CV-16). Their air groups comprised thirty-six Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat fighters, thirty-six SBD-5 Dauntless dive bombers, and eighteen TBF-1 Avenger torpedo bombers. During the same interval the Independence, Belleau Wood, and Princeton—three new Independence-class light carriers converted from light cruiser hulls—also reached Pearl. After some adjustments, their air groups numbered twenty-four F6F-3s and nine TBF-1s. Sherman fully demonstrated the validity of his tactical concepts, which justified Fletcher’s faith in multi-carrier task forces. Issued on 10 June 1943, the Current Tactical Orders and Doctrine U.S. Pacific Fleet (PAC-10) decreed task groups must incorporate their carriers in the same screen and criticized the old concept of single-carrier task forces.7
Ted Sherman won the tactical war, but lost his personal battle. When it came time in late July 1943 to organize multi-carrier task forces, he reluctantly returned to the South Pacific to relieve Admiral Ramsey in charge of the Saratoga task force. Duckworth with part of the staff remained at Pearl to serve Rear Adm. Charles “Baldy” Pownall and Rear Adm. Alfred E. Montgomery, the prospective carrier task force commanders. Duckworth recalled, “All Ted Sherman wanted was a little recognition but he gritted his teeth & stuck to his job in spite of the oversights because he knew his tactics were right & would eventually would be recognized. I, by very odd circumstances, was the one to demonstrate them to the Navy.” As Pownall’s chief of staff, Duckworth planned the successful 31 August raid on Marcus, the first combat for the new carriers. The Essex, Yorktown, and Independence formed in the same screen, along with a fast battleship, two light cruisers, and ten destroyers, for “more effective air defense with fewer fighters per carrier than when the carriers operated independently and a greater concentration of antiaircraft fire when under attack.” Pownall then hit the Gilberts with the Lexington, Princeton, and Belleau Wood.8
Having personally tested the multi-carrier concept at Marcus, Duckworth likewise planned Montgomery’s massive 5–6 October raid against Wake Island, employing three big carriers and three light carriers, three heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, twenty-four destroyers, and two fleet oilers. Their 372 aircraft were the biggest concentration of U.S. carrier air power to date. Montgomery exercised the carriers in different combinations: a single group of six, two groups of three, and three groups of two. During the actual attack, the Independence and Belleau Wood operated in a separate task group covering the bombardment force. According to Duckworth, the “tactical lessons were demonstrated in [1942] & all we did was apply them in the summer & fall of 1943.” Regarding Marcus and Wake, “The formation & tactics used on these raids were practically unchanged when I returned to sea 18 months later.” The new Pacific Fleet fast carrier task force comprised four and more independent carrier task groups (ideally of two big carriers and one light carrier) that operated separately as necessary to accomplish the mission. That arrangement satisfied the need for concentrating enough air strength in one disposition to matter, yet offered the tactical flexibility desired by those who favored dispersion.9
In early November 1943 Sherman led the Saratoga and Princeton on two successive forays against Rabaul in support of Halsey’s invasion of Bougainville. The second raid included Montgomery’s task group (Essex, Bunker Hill, and Independence) approaching from a different direction. Sherman and Montgomery reached the central Pacific in time for Galvanic, the invasions of Tarawa and Makin in the Gilberts, set for 20 November. The handling of the carriers during Galvanic, the greatest commitment of carriers to date, is very instructive when compared with the August 1942 Watchtower offensive against Guadalcanal. Divided into four task groups, Pownall’s TF-50 of six large carriers and five light carriers (684 planes) “constituted the first use of the fast carrier task force as it continued through the rest of the war.” In addition, eight escort carriers with 218 planes (including forty-four F6F Hellcats ready to base at Tarawa) provided close air support for the Galvanic invasion forces. In 1942 Fletcher could scarcely have dreamt of nineteen carriers and nine hundred carrier planes for the Guadalcanal-Tulagi landings. The aircraft on the jeep carriers alone nearly equaled the air strength (234) of the Saratoga, Enterprise, and Wasp on 7 August 1942.10
In November 1943 U.S. naval intelligence estimated Japan might have two hundred land-based planes in the Marshalls and Gilberts and at Wake. (Actually there were about ninety.) The closest enemy air bases in the Marshalls were only 200–225 miles distant from Makin, the northerly of the two objectives. Truk, where it was thought the Combined Fleet lurked in strength, was thirteen hundred miles west of Makin. That potential threat deeply troubled Spruance and Turner, the Galvanic amphibious commander. On 29 October Spruance advised, “If a major portion of the Jap Fleet were to attempt to interfere with Galvanic, it is obvious that the defeat of the enemy fleet would at once become paramount.” A dearth of cruisers and destroyers forced him to assign five new fast battleships to screen the two northern carrier groups, Pownall’s own TG-50.1 (Yorktown, Lexington, and Cowpens) and Rear Adm. Arthur W. Radford’s TG-50.2 (Enterprise, Belleau Wood, and Monterey). Montgomery was to have TG-50.3 (Essex, Bunker Hill, and Independence) off Tarawa, while Sherman’s TG-50.4 (Saratoga and Princeton) would not arrive until later, after raiding Nauru to the southwest. Should the Japanese fleet sortie against the Gilberts, Spruance expected a surface action, for which he must have those battlewagons. The “possibility of an enemy attack in force on the Makin Area with little or no warning necessitates that on and after D-Day, the carrier task groups operating there with the new battleships in their screens must remain in as close tactical supporting distance of the Northern Attack Force as the nature of their air operations and fuel situation permits.” In that way Pownall’s and Radford’s carriers would also “provide very effective fighter protection against enemy air attacks coming from the Marshalls against our ships at Makin,” but, of course, at their own considerable risk if the planes went after them instead. Turner “insisted,” as he had in August 1942 off Guadalcanal, “that all the carriers be tied down off the target beaches” to protect the unloading of his transports. For his own part Fletcher had to take into account a possible sudden appearance by the Combined Fleet during the Guadalcanal landings, but he certainly lacked the awesome air power available to Spruance.11
Towers and his aviators were irate at what they considered a terrible misuse of carrier air power. Instead of retaining the freedom to smash all air bases within the Marshalls, TF-50 had to deploy in limited defensive sectors near the invasion forces. Deploring Spruance’s intransigence, Clark Reynolds explained: “Defensive sectors, the aviators knew very well, would attract Japanese land-based planes by the score, something any South Pacific veteran would have never allowed. Certainly Halsey would not have, after his troubles holding onto Guadalcanal the year before. Mobility was the only defense when carriers lay within range of enemy air bases and long range bombers.” “Unable to exploit their carriers’ maneuverability,” Pownall and Radford were “little more than sitting ducks for the enemy’s planes, submarines, and now fleet.” Fletcher was in even a worse fix in August 1942 while staked out south of Guadalcanal well within range of Rabaul’s planes. He could never imagine neutralizing their air bases prior to or during the landings, for he had only the three carriers that were also the sole source of close air support for the landing force.12
Towers and his carrier admirals strongly protested Spruance’s plans to Nimitz, who compromised to the extent of allowing Pownall to strike the nearest bases in the Marshalls prior to the landings. Thereafter TF-50 must take up the “defensive cruising sectors.” Because of land-based air attacks, one of which torpedoed the Independence off Tarawa, “Towers’ worst fears had been realized the very first day of the invasion.” Moreover, “What lay in store for the carriers over the following days could only be surmised.” Thus, “Livid with Spruance for his tactics of immobilizing the carriers offshore,” Towers urged that Spruance “modify existing orders which restrict operations of all three carrier task groups to very limited areas between Tarawa and Mili.” He should unleash them “against the air bases in the Marshalls instead of maintaining a defensive position with the extreme likelihood of great damage from submarine and aircraft attack, particularly aircraft torpedo attacks around dusk.” On 21 November Nimitz directed Spruance to give Pownall’s carriers “greater freedom of movement consistent with their mission.” In the first six days of Galvanic the Japanese managed only three air strikes of consequence. The Combined Fleet never did show up. From 19 November to 8 December (including the post-Galvanic strikes against the Marshalls), the fast carriers lost thirty-six aircraft (5.2 percent) to all causes. On 7–8 August 1942 alone, Fletcher’s losses approached 10 percent (including 20 percent of his fighters), with no immediate prospect of replacements. On 24 November 1943 (D+4) a submarine sank the escort carrier Liscome Bay off Makin with great loss of life. Although actually on schedule, the army troops on Makin were blamed for not prosecuting their offensive swiftly enough and thus prolonging Turner’s stay. In 1942, however, no one other than Colonel Maas criticized Vandegrift for his hesitant advance against Lunga. Nor were Turner’s demands in 1942 for continuous carrier support to D+4 and beyond similarly questioned. Fletcher escaped successful sub attack during the landings, but within five weeks I-boats crippled one U.S. carrier and sank another.13
If Towers was justified for all his strident criticisms of Spruance’s and Turner’s restrictive policy for the fast carriers in Galvanic, Fletcher deserved enlightened consideration of his infinitely weaker carrier strength when similarly hamstrung supporting Turner’s August 1942 landings at Guadalcanal. Yet Towers and others showed scant understanding that Fletcher faced the same dangers but with far fewer resources. Instead, he sneered Fletcher just “ran away.” Towers and his aviator admirals, who enjoyed such terrific numerical, qualitative, and matériel superiority over the Japanese during the Pacific offensives of 1943–45, never realized what it was like for the pioneers of 1942 who fought and repeatedly won against the odds.14
Fletcher’s break came unexpectedly in late September 1943, after MacArthur expressed dissatisfaction over Carpender’s handling of the Seventh Fleet. Admiral Kinkaid came to mind as an experienced (and available) amphibious commander who got along well with the army. Thus Nimitz proposed to Washington that Fletcher take over the North Pacific Area and North Pacific Force and retain the Northwest Sea Frontier as well. King acquiesced, and consequently on 11 October Fletcher relieved Kinkaid, while Rear Adm. Sherwoode A. Taffinder took his place as Com 13. Fletcher moved his headquarters to Adak in the Aleutians. His principal offensive assets were the “Strategic Air Force,” made up of the Eleventh Air Force and Fleet Air Wing Four, and a “covering force” of a few old cruisers and destroyers. Having regained the Aleutians, the North Pacific Area’s prime missions were to safeguard the region through which the majority of lend-lease shipments reached the Soviet Union and to prepare for offensive operations, possibly in the spring of 1945, against Paramushiro in the northern Kurile Islands. Continued pressure from the northeast troubled Japan, which feared invasion from that quarter, and would bolster the Soviet Union’s position should it come into the Pacific War. Fletcher knew precisely who was responsible for his resurrection. On 4 December he wrote Nimitz that he “was very pleased to be brought back into the Fleet, even by the back door.” Given that Halsey, Spruance, and Kinkaid were firmly locked in the top Pacific Fleet combat slots, the North Pacific Area was the best operational billet Fletcher could possibly have expected.15
Fletcher did not have much with which to fight in the dreary Aleutians, but he did what he could, mostly with aircraft whose brave crews regularly flew perilous long-distance raids against Paramushiro and the rest of the northern Kuriles. On 7 January 1944 Nimitz directed that strikes against the Kuriles continue and advised Fletcher of the possibility, once suitable bases were constructed, that Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bombers might join the North Pacific (Norpac) Area’s effort against Japan. On 4 February Rear Adm. Wilder D. Baker’s TG-94.6 (two old light cruisers and seven destroyers) conducted the first ship bombardment of Japanese home territory by shelling Paramushiro—an action Morison described “very creditable.” At the same time Spruance rampaged through the Marshalls, seizing Kwajalein atoll among others and bypassing several strong points. Nimitz encouraged Fletcher to keep up the pressure. Current strategic policy dictated only feints against the Kuriles, but that could change quickly and Norpac must be ready. Fletcher did everything he could to follow Nimitz’s directive to take the fight to the enemy and keep morale high. In April 1944, the same month Fletcher formed the Alaskan Sea Frontier, Cdr. Harold Hopkins, RN, who was Michael Laing’s successor as British naval liaison officer with the Pacific Fleet, visited the Aleutians. He was impressed the U.S. Navy had assigned “one of its most distinguished flag officers” as Commander, North Pacific Area and Force (Comnorpac), a truth one wonders ever registered with the Japanese. Hopkins praised Fletcher’s “forceful and energetic leadership” that “imbued the officers and men of his command with an offensive spirit that was outstanding in a locality where ninety per cent of the time, the climate was vile and life could be monotonous and dreary in the extreme.” Far from assuming they were in a backwater, the American sailors and airmen whom Hopkins met in the Aleutians “imagined [as did Fletcher] that they were blazing the trail for a northern offensive that would end in Japan.” A month later Fletcher learned of Operation Keelblocks, a plan by the Joint Chiefs to seize the northern Kuriles and ensure clear access to the Soviet Far East ports in the event the Russians entered the Pacific War.16
In June 1944 while Admiral Spruance’s Fifth Fleet invaded the Marianas, Fletcher launched several diversionary raids with his striking force of two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and nine destroyers against the Kuriles. On 22 June Nimitz wrote Fletcher that the “offensive use of the forces at your disposal, both air and surface, has kept the enemy worried and confused.” He reiterated “our strategic concept still includes the possibility of a northern assault in 1945.” After the grand strategic conference at Pearl with Nimitz and MacArthur, President Roosevelt visited Adak on 3–4 August 1944 in a trip that certainly emphasized, at least temporarily, the importance of the northern area. Cincpac’s draft plan for Keelblocks called for Fletcher to protect Kamchatka and the Komandorskiye Islands. Fletcher countered by recommending assaults against the central and southern Kuriles first, the better to confront Japan directly. Nimitz’s deputy chief of staff, Rear Adm. Forrest Sherman, agreed with Fletcher’s assessment.17
In June Admiral Mitscher’s TF-58 (the designation of the fast carriers while in the Fifth Fleet) easily won the Battle of the Philippine Sea, the first carrier battle since October 1942, while Turner captured Saipan (a defeat that brought down Premier Tōjō Hideki’s government), Tinian, and Guam. Flat Tinian was rapidly converted into a vast air base to enable the B-29s to begin pounding the Japanese home islands late that fall. In September Spruance transferred his mobile forces to Halsey’s Third Fleet and began charting the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Freed of direct amphibious responsibilities after most of his amphibious ships were loaned to Admiral Kinkaid’s Seventh Fleet with MacArthur, Halsey essentially ran the fast carriers (CTF-38 Mitscher merely became his deputy) tearing up the western Pacific. In October Halsey supported MacArthur’s invasion of Leyte in the central Philippines. The great naval battle of Leyte Gulf resulted in a decisive U.S. victory, but the decoying of Halsey away from San Bernardino Strait to chase nearly empty carriers left a bitter legacy when powerful surface forces attacked Kinkaid’s escort carriers. Afterward Japan resorted increasingly to kamikaze suicide air attacks that harassed TF-38, now under McCain.
Meeting 8 December 1944 at Pearl Harbor. Left to right: Admiral Nimitz, Lt. Gen. Delos C. Emmons, Admiral Fletcher, Admiral Spruance, Lt. Gen. Simon B. Buckner.
Courtesy of National Archives (80-G-290984)
The poor autumn weather in the North Pacific further restricted Fletcher’s opportunities for harming the Kuriles, and Nimitz correspondingly reduced his strength. In contrast to the vast armadas of Spruance, Halsey, and Kinkaid, Fletcher could count on the fingers of one hand every one of his warships larger than a destroyer. Understandably on 5 October he told Rear Adm. John L. McCrea, his new surface strike commander, if during a bombardment mission “conditions arise which will unduly expose our forces to enemy concentration of air power without protection of our fighters or low visibility, retire at discretion, giving due consideration to the calculated risk.” Fletcher just wanted McCrea to “go out and shoot up the Kuriles. Make your own plans. Just keep me informed as to what you propose to do, and if I don’t like what you are doing, I’ll tell you so.” McCrea recalled: “I don’t know whether I could have, if I had been in his spot, trusted somebody that I didn’t know at all to that extent, but that’s what he did. He never stopped me or anything.” Like Nimitz, Fletcher did not micromanage his subordinates. McCrea got to know Fletcher well during the long winter in Adak, and they became “close friends.” Aware of his boss’s controversial record in the Guadalcanal campaign, McCrea nevertheless declared Fletcher “a good officer.”18
On 1 December 1944 Nimitz acknowledged Fletcher’s September recommendation to invade the central and southern Kuriles, telling him to draw up plans to seize Matsuwa and Etoforu islands. In response to renewed interest by the Joint Chiefs in Keelblocks, Fletcher attended planning sessions at Pearl on 3–8 December with Nimitz, Spruance, and the top Alaskan army generals. With the defeat of Germany imminent, the USSR might be expected to declare war on Japan in the spring of 1945. The planners at Pearl believed the Soviets might need help defending the Kamchatka peninsula and roughed out Keelblocks II, a two-phase operation that would see U.S. forces help secure Kamchatka, build airfields, then assault Paramushiro. Although “sufficient naval forces are potentially available,” the required troops and shipping, though, could scarcely be spared from the other planned Pacific offensives. It would be necessary to wait and see just when or if the USSR entered the Pacific War and determine then what might be available.19
After what Fletcher characterized as Nimitz’s “perfect hospitality,” he returned in good spirits to Adak only to discover that his job as Comnorpac was in jeopardy. Somehow he learned that Taffinder, Rear Adm. Alan G. Kirk (the senior U.S. amphibious leader in the Normandy D-Day assault), and “possibly others” had been offered his command. Fletcher felt sufficiently perturbed to contact Jacobs at Bupers, who explained, “No definite decision had been made but that my detachment had been under consideration and my assignment to the General Board was a possibility.” Jacobs asked Fletcher what he wanted, only to be told he would take that up personally with Cincpac. Fletcher did so in a blunt missive to Nimitz on 16 December:
Since I have been invited by the Chief of Personnel to express my wishes, I will do so categorically:
1) I am perfectly willing to remain here as long as you would like my services, subject to provisions noted below.
2) If I am to be superseded before any important operations start in this area I wish it to be done well in advance. To arrive just after Kinkaid cleaned up Attu and depart just before some other started another show would be too much for my vanity.
3) If I am to be retained here more or less indefinitely I would like to have a month’s leave. I can pick my time when this would be entirely feasible.
4) Regardless of all other considerations I, like all the officers in the Navy, will be delighted to serve under you whenever and wherever and under any conditions you desire.
No doubt surprised Fletcher knew of the behind-the-scenes effort to replace him, Nimitz responded in a conciliatory manner. No direct reply to the 16 December letter survives in either man’s papers, but the fact is Fletcher remained and Nimitz certainly attempted to smooth things over.20
King’s agenda for the Cominch-Cincpac conference held on 24–26 November 1944 at San Francisco indeed included the question of whether it is “agreeable to Cincpac to have Vice Admiral Fletcher relieved as Comnorpacfor.” Just why King considered replacing Fletcher is not known, but it probably involved renewed hopes for a much greater effort in the North Pacific. In addition, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal strongly desired to revitalize the General Board. Once combining senior-admiral “elder statesmen” and rising young stars, the Board previously served as the navy’s prime advisory and policy-setting body, but by the early 1930s it had lost much of its powers to the chief of naval operations. During his tenure as Cominch-CNO, King further trimmed its responsibilities. By the fall of 1944 the General Board comprised only elderly retired admirals, not “young combat-experienced flag officers.” That is understandable. No active admirals preferred such tame Washington duty when there was fighting to be done and careers to be advanced. King neither got along with Forrestal nor truly wished to resuscitate the General Board, but nevertheless at the conference he stated, “Very capable Flag Officers must be placed on the General Board as soon as possible.” Fletcher, due to his war record, probably seemed an ideal candidate whom King felt could be spared from the fighting front. Furthermore, he was no intriguer likely to cause Cominch any trouble.21
King, also at Forrestal’s order, proposed that Admiral Towers (deputy Cincpac and Nimitz’s logistics czar) replace Vice Adm. William Calhoun, longtime commander of the Pacific Fleet’s Service Force. Calhoun’s job was in doubt because he had not adequately developed the forward bases. King and Nimitz decided that Towers would stay where he was, but Rear Adm. William “Poco” Smith would eventually relieve Calhoun. Nimitz in turn recommended that Calhoun either receive “a fighting job” or relieve Fletcher as Comnorpac. Admiral Fitch (deputy chief of naval operations for air) boldly countered on his friend Fletcher’s behalf to ask whether Calhoun “would be satisfactory on the General Board.” The minutes recorded that none of Nimitz’s “proposals were approved.” Later in the meeting King inquired directly of Nimitz what he thought now about removing Fletcher, but the minutes noted without explanation, “It was decided not to relieve Admiral Fletcher” (emphasis in original). Thus Fletcher stayed where he was, while in March 1945 Calhoun took over the much-shriveled South Pacific Area from Vice Adm. John Newton. By not getting dumped Fletcher must have been perceived by all as doing a satisfactory job. So Nimitz stuck with him, but their relationship suffered. Perhaps the corrosive presence of Kelly Turner (Commander, Amphibious Force, Pacific Fleet) in Nimitz’s inner circle had a deleterious effect, for he never ceased reviling Fletcher for “abandoning” him at Guadalcanal.22
In early 1945 Fletcher kept the heat on the Kuriles with sporadic bombardments in addition to constant small-scale air attacks. That January King revealed to him plans for “Project Hula,” which involved transfer, between April and December 1945, of 250 frigates, patrol craft, minesweepers, landing craft, and similar small ships from the U.S. Navy to the USSR. These ships would give the Soviets the capability to undertake their own limited amphibious operations against Japan. Delivery would take place at an Aleutian base, so it would be necessary to bring Soviet sailors there and train them before turning over the ships. Fletcher suggested locating that base at Cold Bay and provided the necessary facilities. At Yalta in February 1945 the Allies secured Soviet agreement to enter the war with Japan following the victory over Germany, after a minimum of three months to transfer troops east and stockpile supplies in Siberia.23
In February–March 1945 after one of the fiercest battles of the war, Spruance’s Fifth Fleet took Iwo Jima only 650 miles from Tokyo. The invasion of Okinawa in the Ryukyu Islands followed in April, and during the bloody three-month ground campaign the “Fleet that Came to Stay” fended off a blizzard of kamikaze air attacks that inflicted grievous losses in ships and personnel. The end of the war in Europe in May 1945 forecast Soviet entry into the Pacific War later that summer. The current iteration of Keelblocks recognized the Russians could take care of the Kuriles and assault Hokkaido themselves, with American forces only needed to secure the line of communication from the United States to the Maritime Provinces. Fletcher asked for four escort carriers and stronger surface forces to screen convoys and an additional heavy bomber group to deal with air bases in the Kuriles. Nimitz suggested to King that seven escort carriers, three heavy cruisers, and twenty-six destroyers be sent. A grateful Fletcher said that would “result in the early neutralization of the entire Kurile area.”24
These reinforcements were still in the process of moving into the Aleutians when the body blows of two atomic bombs, the Soviet declaration of war, and the USSR’s speedy conquest of Manchuria caused Japan on 15 August to agree to surrender. Fletcher received orders to patrol the Japanese coast north of latitude 40° north and to clear mines in the Tsugaru Strait in anticipation of landing on Hokkaido and in northern Honshū. The Soviets retook southern Sakhalin island and assaulted the Kuriles, with Norpac only an interested spectator. The formal Japanese surrender took place on 2 September in Tokyo Bay, presided over by General of the Army MacArthur, Fleet Admiral Nimitz, and Admiral Halsey on board the battleship Missouri. In the meantime Fletcher broke his flag in the amphibious command ship Panamint, formed his task force, and departed Adak for Japan. Traversing Tsugaru Strait on 8 September, he entered Mutsu Bay in northern Honshū, and the next day received the surrender of Japanese forces in northern Japan. Thus Fletcher, one of the few remaining old timers of 1941–42, treasured the satisfaction of directly participating in the final victory over Japan. That fall he relinquished command of the North Pacific Area and Alaskan Sea Frontier and left to join the General Board in Washington.25
Admiral Fletcher’s tenure as Comnorpac brought recognition from the War Department and the Canadians, if not the U.S. Navy. General of the Army Hap Arnold presented the Army DSM to Fletcher, the first naval officer whom he personally decorated. The citation praised Fletcher for displaying “broad vision, tireless energy, and an unusually complete grasp of Army Air Forces tactics and capabilities in expertly solving the many problems involved in combined Army-Navy air operations.” In requesting the British government to name Fletcher a Companion of the Order of the Bath (Military Division), the Royal Canadian Air Force cited him for having “worked closely and in the utmost harmony with Air Officer Commanding, Western Air Command,” where Fletcher “always provided assistance when required and in mutual coast defence and shipping problems has co-operated to the fullest extent.” It is interesting that Australia never showed any interest in decorating Fletcher for fighting and winning the Battle of the Coral Sea, the anniversary of which is enthusiastically celebrated as a national holiday.26
In December 1945 Nimitz returned to Washington to relieve Fleet Admiral King as chief of naval operations, and the post of commander in chief, U.S. Fleet, was abolished. At the same time Halsey received promotion to fleet admiral. The arguably more deserving Admiral Spruance briefly replaced Nimitz as Cincpac before becoming president of the Naval War College. Fletcher himself reported as a senior member of a General Board that was in trouble. During the war the Board mainly analyzed ship design, but in 1945 the CNO created the Ship Characteristics Board that performed the same basic task. That meant the General Board was itself a relic in a navy striving to restructure to confront the nuclear age. On 1 May 1946 Fletcher rose to chairman of the General Board, but the debate over its redundancy and mission did not concern him much longer. The navy lowered the mandatory retirement age to sixty-two, which he would attain on 29 April 1947. That March, at the behest of Secretary of the Navy Forrestal, Towers relieved Fletcher as General Board chairman. With Towers’s eager concurrence, Forrestal planned to use the reorganized board to trump Nimitz, whose appointment as CNO Forrestal vigorously opposed. Glad to leave internecine navy politics behind, Fletcher retired on 1 May 1947, the same day he was advanced to four stars.27
Frank Jack and Martha Fletcher greatly enjoyed their life on their beloved colonial farm Araby near La Plata, in rural southeastern Maryland. However, the postwar assault on his professional reputation and wartime performance certainly saddened them. Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher died on 25 April 1973 at the age of eighty-seven and rests in Arlington National Cemetery alongside Martha, who passed away the next year.