Aviators From The United States

"King had grown up alone with his father in an Ohio household from which his chronically ailing mother had been removed. He was ever after a loner, a brusque man who fathered seven children but seemed to love only the Navy."

""When they get in trouble they send for the sonsabitches." Asked whether he had said said this, Admiral King replied no, he had not, but he would have if he had thought of it. They were indeed in trouble when they sent for King, bringing him from the brink of retirement to be Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, and King would have been ready to admit that he enjoyed a reputation for toughness and ill temper that had few equals in the upper ranks of the U.S. Navy. He took charge of that navy at the depths of its despair and lifted it to the heights of triumph. He was a hard man in a hard time, well suited to lead a fighting fleet, but he was also a thoughtful man of a breadth and incisiveness that gave him an early and enduring grip on Allied strategy. Much of the war went the way he wished it to. The strongest mind within the American Joint Chiefs of Staff was the mind of Ernest J. King."

"On the evening of December 8, therefore, after the Japanese had bombed the airfields and destroyed many of General MacArthur's planes, our submarines and motor torpedo boats, which were still in Philippine water, were left with the task of impeding the enemy's advance."

"King, sixty-three years old in 1942, was as gruff a man as Nimitz was a serene one. Hard-drinking and legendarily ill-tempered, he once confessed that he had not actually uttered the self-descriptive epithet "when they get in trouble they send for the sonsabitches" but that he would have if he had thought of it. Yet King's choleric manner masked an incisive strategic intelligence, possessed of qualities that perfectly fitted him for senior command: the ability to anticipate, the capacity for penetrating analysis of his adversary's predicaments, an unerring grasp of the reach and limits of his own forces, and a pit bull's determination to seize the initiative and attack, attack, attack."

"Throughout the war, the four of us- Marshall, King, Arnold, and myself- worked in the closest possible harmony. In the postwar period, General Marshall and I disagreed sharply on some aspects of our foreign political policy. However, as a soldier, he was in my opinion one of the best, and his drive, courage, and imagination transformed America's citizen army into the most magnificent fighting force ever assembled. In number of men and logistical requirements, his army operations were by far the largest. This meant that more time of the Joint Chiefs were spent on his problems than on any others- and he invariably presented them with skill and clarity. King had an equally difficult task. His fleets had to hold Japan at bay while convoying millions of tons of supplies for the second front. He was an exceptionally able sea commander. He was also explosive and there were times when it was just as well that the deliberations of the Joint Chiefs were a well-kept secret. The President had a high opinion of King's ability but he was a very undiplomatic person, especially when the Admiral's low boiling point would be reached in some altercation with the British. King would have preferred to put more power into the Asiatic war earlier. He supported loyally the general strategy of beating Germany first, but this often required concessions of ships which he did not like to make. He could not spare much, since, until the last months of the war, he was working with a deficit of ships. America was fighting a two-ocean war for the first time in its history."

"The Battle of Midway was the first decisive defeat suffered by the Japanese Navy in 350 years. Furthermore, it put an end to the long period of Japanese offensive action, and restored the balance of naval power in the Pacific. The threat to Hawaii and the west coast was automatically removed, and except for operations in the Aleutians area, where the Japanese had landed on the islands of Kiska and Attu, enemy operations were confined to the south Pacific. It was to this latter area, therefore, that we gave our greatest attention."

"Never before in the history of war had there been a more convincing example of the effectiveness of sea power than when a well-armed, highly efficient and undefeated army of over a million men surrendered their homeland unconditionally to the invader without even token resistance. True, the devastation already wrought by past bombings, as well as the terrible demonstration of power by the first atomic bombs, augured nothing less for the Japanese than total extinction; yet without sea power there would have been no possession of Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa from which to launch these bombings. True, the Japanese homeland might have been taken by assault in one final amphibious operation of tremendous magnitude, yet without sea power such an assault could not have been attempted."

"Partial to Baltimore. Won fame in Massachusetts in Spanish war. The Saturday Night Club during youngster year. Then Stein and he reformed. Noon-walks. Spoons occasionally. Hops,- Well, yes! Temper? Don't fool with nitroglycerin. Court beauty No. 2. Rooms with the "Full Dinner Pail". Laugh as rosy as his cheeks."

"In character, Ernie King was the direct antithesis of General George Marshall. It is true that they had in common a liking for attractive women, but while Marshall's mood lightened at the sight of a pretty face, King reached out at the approach of a seductive female rump. He was an inveterate bottom pincher, and the benchmarks of many a bright young officer's promotion in the Navy were the bruises on his wife's shapely posterior. King was very much married, with a family of six daughters and a son. His wife, Mattie, was one of those spouses who used to be referred to as "long-suffering." She had known the time when her husband had been not only a dogged chaser of naval wives but a hard drinker, too, passed over for promotion on one crucial occasion for suspected alcoholism; but, typical of his strength of mind, he had taken the pledge to eschew hard liquor for the duration of the war and now sipped only an occasional sherry. He had taken no similar pledge to eschew the opposite sex, and Mattie King had learned to live with that, though she did occasionally retaliate by finding out which naval wife King happened to be visiting. She would then telephone and, refusing to speak to her husband, would simply leave the message: "Tell him his wife called.""

"Calculating risks does not mean taking a gamble. It is more than figuring the odds. It is not reducible to a formula. It is the analysis of all factors which collectively indicate whether or not the consequences to ourselves will be more than compensated for by the damage to the enemy or interference with his plans. Correct calculation of risks, by orderly reasoning, is the responsibility of every naval officer who participates in combat, and many who do not."

"King's oaken hull began to split in 1947, when he suffered a stroke. His mind remained alert, but his iron-plated timbers began to creak and sag. He moved into a suite at Bethesda Naval Hospital for full-time care, and at one point he shared a floor with the acutely depressed James Forrestal, who ended his life by jumping from the sixteenth-floor window in 1949. King spent the next seven summers at the naval hospital in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He slipped his moorings and sailed over the bar on June 25, 1956, at the age of seventy-eight. He was buried at Annapolis, home of the United States Naval Academy. The only hymn sung at his funeral was a Navy anthem, an old favorite of Roosevelt's: "Eternal Father, Strong to Save.""

"In my judgment King was the strongest man on the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. He had a keen, analytical mind. He was incisive and direct in his approach to the solution of a problem. He did not understand and could not engage in small talk. Perhaps he took himself too seriously, for he seemed outwardly to be devoid of a sense of humor. Years of military training had left their stamp- a rigidly self-disciplined man who did not ask anyone to conform to a strict code unless he himself within his own conscience knew that he was capable of performing in a similar manner. He never engaged in a sarcasm and was completely selfless. If he had been a smoothie or a person given to double talk, he might have easily assuaged the hurt feelings of the British when he took a definite position against their efforts to commit practically everything to the Mediterranean."

"Despite his efforts to win over his subordinates, King did not mind overworking his staff. When he was a flag officer, King preferred a small staff of eleven officers who were skilled and competent. He believed that this was the most efficient way to conduct naval planning and the right way to best utilize manpower. Smaller staffs, however, mean greater work for less people, and that is true as much today as it was then. Buell notes that staffers for King worked long hours and frequently on weekends, knew what King expected of them, but always received few comments for or against a submitted plan. In short, King was a difficult leader to develop plans for. He was extremely general and vague in his initial guidance, and the staff therefore had to try and figure out what he really wanted. Buell notes that even after numerous drafts, if King did not like a plan he would rip it up in front of the officer presenting it and write it himself on the spot."

"Tough as nails and carried himself as stiffly as a poker. He was blunt and stand-offish, almost to the point of rudeness. At the start, he was intolerant and suspicious of all things British, especially the Royal Navy; but he was almost equally intolerant and suspicious of the American Army. War against Japan was the problem to which he had devoted the study of a lifetime, and he resented the idea of American resources being used for any other purpose than to destroy the Japanese. He mistrusted Churchill's powers of advocacy, and was apprehensive that he would wheedle President Roosevelt into neglecting the war in the Pacific."

"Well, it's all over. I wonder what I'm going to do tomorrow."

"I can best stress the importance of the U.S. Navy to the American people when I state that without sea power on our side the United States would never have become a nation, would not have continued to exist as a nation, and even more specifically would not have won the great World War just so successfully concluded."

"The belief that King was well versed in naval surface and aerial warfare and that he was technically competent in the use of naval warfare is widely accepted by authors assessing King as a naval leader and is not in question in this monograph. What is examined in this monograph is King's leadership abilities absent his technical naval skills. This analysis will demonstrate that King was perceived as a toxic leader who was known to be petulant, overly emotional, stubborn, egotistical, and immoral. These leadership traits, more than anything else define King, and these negative traits affected how he engaged those he led, US and Allied leaders, and even his own family."

"Our Chiefs felt that they knew so little of what was really going on in the Pacific, of what the U.S. Navy planned to do, and of the amount of resources that these plans would absorb, that some enlightenment would be valuable. They also felt that 'Uncle Ernie' would take a less jaundiced view of the rest of the world if he had been able to shoot his line about the Pacific and get it off his chest."

"Once the decision to build up the Navy was taken, strong men of clear vision quickly rose to the top of the service hierarchy. Chief among these were Adm Ernest King and VAdm Chester Nimitz, men of such consummate skill that the ennui of the prewar years had virtually no impact upon their abilities and sensibilities as commanders or as men. Others slightly less senior were pulled forward by the enormous suction created by King's and Nimitz's rise to the top."

"Admiral King's role in the development of strategy for defeating Japan is very difficult to evaluate in detail. Officially he approved or disapproved recommendations that came to him as Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, and Chief of Naval Operations and as one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from his own naval planners, and from the joint planners in Washington. Frequently these recommendations had already been influenced by his own views. Still many of the objectives he preferred, most notably Formosa, were bypassed, and much of the time his recommendations were only in terms of areas or island groups. He accepted without question the specific objectives deemed by the operating commands most suitable. The one who came closest to Admiral King in his basic view that the Japanese should be kept under constant pressure was not a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff but the Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area, General MacArthur. Although his role was to recommend and then accept a decision from the JCS, and many of his views on strategy differed sharply from those endorsed by the JCS, his repeated efforts to get more support for his area of command and to push ahead as rapidly and with as much force as possible helped to insure that the war against Japan did not become a forgotten war and were largely responsible for the development of the advance on two axes."

"While Ernie King loved history, there was one story from ancient times that may have escaped his notice. As a boy, the Greek admiral Themistocles was said to have been taken by his father to a deserted beach, where his father showed him the carcasses of old war galleys lying sun-baked, prostrate, and neglected. That, his father told him, is how a democracy treats its leaders when they no longer have use for them. King had once objected to a wartime pay raise for soldiers, sailors, and officers. When the shooting stopped, he said, a grateful nation would distribute just rewards to the men who had brought them safely through the fire. When asked if he would write a book about the war, King replied that while he would do it, the book would have only two words: "We won.""

"SUSPEND ALL OFFENSIVE ACTION. REMAIN ALERT."

"The part of the U.S. Navy alone in this war was stupendous. And I wish here to acknowledge our debt not only to the men and women of the United States Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and their several Women's Reserves, but also to those innumerable civilians who aided the Navy's war effort."

"The military leadership styles of these two naval officers are contrasting in several ways. King was an immoral, self-serving leader who was notably brutal to subordinates and abrasive with Allied military leaders and politicians alike. Nimitz, however, was a moral leader who served is country selflessly, and he was engaging and supportive of his staff as well as sister service members and Allied military leaders and politicians. Really, both men serve as dissimilar examples of naval leadership during World War II and Nimitz's style more closely aligns with the leadership style of Marshall and Eisenhower than it does with King."

"Besides intelligence and dedication, one other pillar supported King's professional reputation: his toughness. He regarded exceptional performance of duty as the norm and evinced insensitivity or even callousness to his subordinates, upon whom he also frequently exercised his ferocious temper. But if King proved harsh with subordinates, he was no toady to superiors. Those who fell short of King's standards found he could be hostile, tactless, arrogant, and sometimes disrespectful or even insubordinate. As a junior officer this conduct earned him more than a healthy share of disciplinary action. He defined the span of his concerns beyond his career when he once commented, "You ought to be very suspicious of anyone who won't take a drink or doesn't like women. King, the father of seven, was deficient in neither category."

"Early in World War II, Captain George C. Dyer served on Admiral King's staff and estimated that his headquarters would require a staff of four hundred people. King blew up and said that since he got by with fourteen while a flag officer at sea, fifty would be the maximum he would tolerate on land. Dyer subsequently went to the Pacific, was severely wounded, and was sent to Bethesda Naval Hospital to recover. While Dyer was in the area, King invited him to stop by his office; and when he came in, King handed him a paper that reported current staffing at 416. It was King's way of admitting he was wrong. Admiral King was noted for his caustic personality, although for the most part it seems to have existed apart from his underlying character. It must have been; few sarcastic individuals rise to the top in the military profession- or stay there if they do- especially when the job includes tangling with the President on a frequent basis. Moreover, many officers who served with him for any length of time came to regard him with an affection and respect that belied his personality."

"The seeming helplessness of our cousins strikes me as amusing when it is not annoying. I am sure what they wish in their hearts is that we would haul down the Stars and Stripes and hoist the White Ensign in all our ships. What particularly irks me is their strong liking for mixed forces, which as you know approached anathema to me. I am willing to take over additional tasks- and we have done so- but I cannot be expected to agree to help them cling to tasks that they themselves say they are unable to do unless we lend them our ships and other forces. I think we have done enough for them in their Home Fleet."

"Stalin knew just what it was he wanted when he came to Teheran, and he got it. Stalin is a stark realist, and there is no foolishness about him. He speaks briefly and directly to the point- not a wasted word."

"The campaigns in the South Pacific, however, may not be regarded as simply the inevitable products of inexorable political and military logic. Events created a milieu, and others, notably President Franklin D. Roosevelt, made important contributions, but the South Pacific strategy was forged principally by one man, Admiral Ernest Joseph King. Here the strategy and command changes resulting from Pearl Harbor intersected, for the Japanese attack completed the remarkable resurrection of King's career. In 1942, King attained his sixty-fourth birthday and completed his forty-first year as a naval officer. His father was a seaman, a bridge builder, and finally a foreman in a railroad repair shop. Drawn to his father's workplace, young Ernest absorbed the complexities of gears and lathes and the simple unpretentiousness of the workmen. After graduating fourth in a class of eighty-seven from the Naval Academy, King pursued a career remarkable for its versatility, with important work in surface ships, submarines, and naval aviation. He completed all his assignments with distinction, for the brain beneath his balding pate was agile with technical matters and he possessed a prodigious memory."

"King also repaired his deteriorating relationship with the press. This relationship had become so bad that journalists were circulating unfounded stories in order to force Roosevelt to relieve him. King's attorney, Cornelius H. Bull, recognized that this dismissal would not be in the country's best interests; so Bull got together with Glen Perry, the assistant chief for the New York Sun, in the Suns Washington office. Together they proposed that King meet privately with a selected group of journalists at Bull's home in Alexandria, Virginia, and level with them off the record. King agreed reluctantly, predicting that there would only be one such meeting. In this he was dead wrong. Those meetings continued for the balance of the war, by the end of which the "members" came almost to revere King. He in turn developed a great deal of respect and regard for them. And he kept his job."

"The day after Pearl Harbor our Navy's position in the Pacific was extremely grave. The bulk of our major ships had been put out of commission for a year; only our small Asiatic Fleet under Admiral Hart in the Philippines and portions of the Pacific Fleet that had been absent from Pearl Harbor on the day of the attack were in fighting condition in the Pacific. Even Hawaii might be attacked and overrun at any moment. And in the Atlantic the Axis submarines were destroying a tremendous tonnage of our shipping within sight of our very shores. Then, even at the lowest of the war tide, the decision was made, and correctly: first fight for time, especially in the Pacific- and then assemble the might to conquer first Italy and then Germany, and then inevitably Japan must succumb."

"Lest I look back at this book sometime and find that I've expressed a distaste for some person, and have put down no reason for my aversion, I record this one story of Admiral King. One day this week General Arnold sent a very important note to King. Through inadvertence, the stenographer in Arnold's office addressed it, on the outside, to "Rear Admiral King". Twenty-four hours later the letter came back, unopened, with an arrow pointing to the "Rear," thus: [Here a long, heavy arrow has been drawn in a diagonal line underneath and pointing to the word "Rear."] And that's the size of man the Navy has at its head. He ought to be a big help winning this war."

"Dear Ernie, It has been an education, and a very pleasant one, to serve under you this past winter. May I thank you for your patience of me personally and for the professional lessons you have given me- I should be proud to serve under you any time- anywhere, & under any conditions. The best of luck always- may your new job be to your liking- and here's hoping for more stars afloat. Always sincerely yours, Bill Halsey."

"The admiral who shaved with a blowtorch had given no thought to life after the war. Like Patton, Grant, Sherman and other men who stare transfixed into the bonfires of Mars, King settled into the realization on the day Japan's emissaries signed the surrender documents, he had accomplished his life's work. "King was a lost soul when the war was over," said one friend. "He had served his purpose. He had done what he had set out to do. He had won his part of the war." There would be a massive demobilization as the Navy returned its men to civilian life. The Pearl Harbor inquiry would become public, Congress would slash the Navy's budget, and old salts like himself would be put out to pasture, to make way for younger admirals."

"Well done, Frank Knox. We dedicate ourselves, one and all, to what surely would have been his last order- 'Carry On!'"

"King had the brains, all right, but I hated his guts."

"[It was Admiral King's] custom to encourage free and uninhibited debate until he had absorbed all points of view. He would then come forward with a clear-cut scheme, usually so obviously applicable as to cause all concerned to wonder why they had not thought of it themselves."

"I also went to see Admiral King. He was a naval officer of the frightening type, abrupt, decisive, and frequently blunt as to frighten his subordinates. In our conversation he stressed the point that the venture on which I was going to Britain would mark the first deliberate attempt by the American fighting services to set up a unified command in the field for a campaign of indefinite length. He assured me that he would do everything within his power to sustain my status of actual "commander" of American forces assigned to me. He said that he wanted no foolish talk about my authority depending upon "co-operation and paramount interest." He insisted that there should be single responsibility and authority and he cordially invited me to communicate with him personally at any time that I thought there might be intentional or unintentional violation of this concept by the Navy."

"It's going to be a long war. We will really hit our stride in about a year's time... Our two-ocean Navy is not yet in service. The smaller ships for it will begin to come into service around Thanksgiving or Christmas. The plain fact is we haven't got the tools. Some of our critics would have us do everything everywhere all at once. It can't be done with what we have to work with."

"I have a philosophy that when you have a commander in the field, let him know what you want done and then let him alone. I have two other philosophies. One is: Do the best you can with what you have. The other is: Do not worry about water over the dam."

"Eisenhower did not participate in the final discussions leading to the demise of Sledgehammer. At their conclusion Marshall summoned Eisenhower to his suite in Claridge's. When Eisenhower arrived, the chief of staff was occupied in the bathroom, and their brief discussion took place through the door. In characteristic fashion Marshall announced that Eisenhower was being given the new title of deputy Allied commander in charge of planning for Torch, and that both he and Admiral King were backing his appointment to command the entire operation. Temporarily in limbo as the commander of American forces, pending the president's approval, Eisenhower reflected on Napoleon's remarks that a general must not permit himself to be impatient or distracted in any manner that would weaken or interfere with the execution of a major plan. When the Combined Chiefs of Staff met on July 25 and the subject of a commander for Torch was raised, the blunt-spoken Ernie King declared that the choice seemed obvious: "Well, you've got him right here," he pointed out. "Why not put it under Eisenhower?" As he would later ascertain, Eisenhower once again had reason to regret his earlier criticism of King, who had become one of his strongest supporters."

"We were scarcely well on the beaches when General Marshall, Admiral King, General Arnold, and a group from their respective staffs arrived in England. I arranged to take them into the beachhead during the day of June 12. Their presence, as they roamed around the areas with every indication of keen satisfaction, was heartening to the troops. The importance of such visits by the high command, including, at times, the highest officials of government, can scarcely be underestimated in terms of their value to the soldiers' morale. The soldier has a sense of gratification whenever he sees very high rank in his particular vicinity, possibly on the theory that the area is a safe one or the rank wouldn't be there."

"Paradoxically, King resented anyone who treated him the way he treated others, yet there is little evidence that he tried very hard to be more considerate or patient with other people. Throughout his life King would be a harsh and often intolerant judge of character, but his memoirs are mute on his own self-appraisal- other than when as an ensign he vowed to shed his softness and become a tough naval officer."

"King's role in the war was indispensable. He not only oversaw the expansion of the Navy, but he was also involved in plotting military strategy, directing the antisubmarine effort (he created the Tenth Fleet, a paper organization with himself at its head, to coordinate the antisubmarine war in the Atlantic), and helping coordinate American strategy and operations with those of the Allies. King retired in late 1945, shortly after promotion to five-star rank. For several years thereafter he served as an adviser to the Secretary of the Navy and to the President."

"Admiral King, commander in chief of United States Fleet, and directly subordinate to the President, is an arbitrary, stubborn type, with not too much brains and a tendency toward bullying his juniors. But I think he wants to fight, which is vastly encouraging."

"Our days of victory are in the making."

"We knew what Nimitz was doing. He did the right thing, and we let him alone."

"The major problem facing the Allies in 1942 was to agree on what they would do, and when and where they would do it. No plan had yet been drawn up by Eisenhower's directorate for the employment of assault landing craft for the coming conflicts in Europe and Japan. Although he would later be overruled, a stubborn Ernie King pursued a Pacific-first strategy that favored the navy."

"Betty Stark, known to the more junior officers of the Joint Staff Mission as "Tugboat Annie," was an easy man to get on with. Ernie King on the other hand was a difficult man to like. He had recently become Commander-in-Chief US Fleet and was effectively in charge of the day to day running of the US Navy, leaving the grand strategy to stark. This arrangement did not really work, and in March Stark moved to London as Commander-in-Chief US Naval Forces Europe, while King became both C-in-CUS and CNO. Nobody ever found King an easy man. He appeared prejudiced against all things British, but was probably better described as a ferocious Americanophile. He considered that any deployment of American forces in Europe, or, worse, North Africa was wasted as it detracted from the main theatre of the US Navy, the Pacific. His biggest dislikes were mixing US and Royal Navy ships in a combined force, or allowing US Navy ships to serve under foreign, especially British, command."

"In a period of one month- March 1942- King had inspired and advocated the plans and strategy that would govern the entire course of the war in the Pacific."