Legion Of Honour Recipients

"Dear Mr. President: It appears proper that I should bring to your notice the fact that the record shows that I shall attain the age of 64 years on November 23rd next- one month from today. I am as always at your service. Most sincerely yours, Ernest J. King Admiral, U.S. Navy"

"(1) Defensive phase... a boxer covering up. (2) Defensive-offensive phase... a boxer covering up while seeking an opening to counterpunch. (3) Offensive-defensive phase... blocking punches with one hand while hitting with the other. (4) Offensive phase... hitting with both hands."

"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."

"We hear a great deal of clamor from time to time for unity of command. That's a loose term and has come to be widely used by people who don't have the full facts. Actually, many good officers are not qualified or competent to exercise unified command, but we keep on hearing amateurs suggest that some one man be called in to exercise sweeping control over all things military."

"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."

"SUSPEND ALL OFFENSIVE ACTION. REMAIN ALERT."

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

"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 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."

"It is no easy matter in a global war to have the right materials in the right places at the right times in the right quantities."

"The actions in the Coral Sea and at Midway did much to wrest the initiative from the enemy and slow down further advance. Our first really offensive operation was the seizure of Guadalcanal in August 1942. This campaign was followed by a general offensive made possible by increases in our amphibious forces and in our naval forces in general, which has continued to gain momentum on the entire Pacific front. At the end of February 1944, the enemy had been cleared from the Aleutians, had been pushed well out of the Solomons, and was forced to adopt a defensive delaying strategy. Meanwhile, our own positions in the Pacific had been strengthened."

"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."

"The Battle of Guadalcanal, in spite of heavy losses we sustained, was a decisive victory for us, and our position in the southern Solomons was not threatened again seriously by the Japanese. Except for the "Tokio express," which from time to time succeeded in landing small quantities of supplies and reinforcements, control of the sea and air in the southern Solomons passed to the United States."

"Both in Europe and in the Pacific long roads still lie ahead. But we are now fully entered on those roads, fortified with unity, power, and experience, imbued with confidence and determined to travel far and fast to victory."

"While we contemplate with pride the accomplishments of the past twelve months- accomplishments without precedent in naval history- we must never forget that there is a long, tough and laborious road ahead."

"The final phase of the Pacific naval war commenced with the assault on Iwo Jima in February 1945, closely followed by that on Okinawa in April. These two positions were inner defenses of Japan itself; their capture by United States forces meant that the heart of the Empire would from then on be exposed to the full fury of attack, not only by our carrier aircraft but also by land-based planes, the latter in a strength comparable to that which wreaked such devastation against the better protected and less vulnerable cities of Germany. After Okinawa was in our hands, the Japanese were in a desperate situation, which could only be alleviated if they could strike a counterblow, either by damaging our fleet or by driving us from our advanced island positions. The inability of the Japanese to do either was strong evidence of their increasing impotence and indicated that the end could not be long delayed."

"The defensive organization of Iwo Jima was the most complete and effective yet encountered. The beaches were flanked by high terrain favorable to the defenders. Artillery, mortars, and rocket launchers were well concealed, yet could register on both beaches- in fact, on any point on the island. Observation was possible, both from Mount Suribachi at the south end and from a number of commanding hills and steep defiles sloping to the sea from all sides of the central Motoyama tableland afforded excellent natural cover and concealment, and lent themselves readily to the construction of subterranean positions to which the Japanese are addicted. Knowing the superiority of the firepower which would be brought against them by air, sea, and land, they had gone underground most effectively, while remaining ready to man their positions with mortars, machine guns, and other portable weapons the instant our troops started to attack. The defenders were dedicated to expending themselves- but expending themselves skillfully and protractedly in order to exact the uttermost toll from the attackers. Small wonder then that every step had to be won slowly by men inching forward with hand weapons, and at heavy costs. There was no other way of doing it. The skill and gallantry of our Marines in this exceptionally difficult enterprise was worthy of their best traditions and deserving of the highest commendation. This was equally true of the naval units acting in their support, especially those engaged at the hazardous beaches. American history offers no finer example of courage, ardor and efficiency."

"I'll never forgive the Army for not taking at least part of the blame for Pearl Harbor. That was why I didn't like Stimson."

"I didn't like the atom bomb or any part of it."

"During the war I kept neither a diary nor notes. I had then neither the time nor the inclination, and like most sailors, who through necessity "travel light," I have not accumulated any substantial body of personal papers. Since my relief as Chief of Naval Operations on 15 December 1945, I have spent many hours in recalling the events of World War II and of my earlier life in the Navy. My source has been my memory, verified and supplemented by references to official records and by the recollections of officers who assisted me in my wartime duties. The reader must therefore take this book on faith, for its statements are not bolstered by citations of numerous documents. I must ask him to believe, however, that I have made a sincere and conscientious effort to avoid the inspiration of hindsight and to record matters as they seemed at the time."

"War has changed little in principle from the beginning of recorded history. The mechanized warfare of today is only an evolution of the time when men fought with clubs and stones, and its machines are as nothing without the men who invent them, man them and give them life. War is force- force to the utmost- force to make the enemy yield to our own will- to yield because they see their comrades killed and wounded- to yield because their own will to fight is broken. War is men against men. Mechanized war is still men against men, for machines are masses of inert metal without the men who control them- or destroy them."

"First, all hands gave their best and their utmost, day and night, in good weather and bad, in order that the work might progress with all practicable dispatch. Second, the divers encountered the hazards of their work with unfailing readiness, with the greatest skill and frequently the greatest intrepidity and daring; it is trite to say that the job could not have been done without them; it is true to say that none could have done more than they did. Third, the commanding officer of the Falcon, Lieutenant Henry Hartley, whose seamanship was of the highest order, whose advice in all matters was invaluable, whose judgement was eminently sound, displayed a devotion to duty which was unceasing and a constant example to all hands."

"Fourth, Lieutenant Commander Edward Ellsberg, Construction Corps, the salvage officer, was in direct personal charge of the actual salvage work and diving operations; his technical knowledge and resourcefulness were adequate for all of the innumerable setbacks and difficulties; he developed an improved underwater cutting torch, worked out the technique of handling the pontoons, learned to dive during the months the actual operations were suspended and actually went down on the wreck some three times during the spring operations; he was the embodiment of perseverance and determination."

"On the afternoon of 28 February 1939 King and Halsey went together on board Houston where some twenty or more flag officers of the United States Fleet had been summoned to pay their respects to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy. President Roosevelt was in high spirits, for he loved the Navy and always visibly expanded when at sea. As the admirals greeted him, he would have some pleasant, half-teasing personal message for each. King, when his turn came, shook hands and said that he hoped the President liked the manner in which naval aviation was improving month by month, if not day by day. Mr. Roosevelt seemed pleased by this, and, after a brief chat, admonished King, in his bantering way, to watch out for the Japanese and the Germans. King made no attempt to hold further conversation with the President, even though Admiral Bloch urged him to do so. He had never "greased" anyone during his forty-two years of service and did not propose to begin, particularly at a moment when many of the admirals were trying so hard to please Mr. Roosevelt that it was obvious. He had paid his respects civilly; he was in plain sight, and felt that the President could easily summon him if there were anything more to say. He believed that his record would speak for itself, and that it was not likely to be improved by anything that he might say at this moment. It seemed that the die was already cast, although the President's decision would not be made known for some weeks."

"King, when told that he could have eggs or pancakes and toast and coffee, asked with the severity of expression that has often disconcerted those who do not know his fondness for teasing, why he could not have both. The waiter gasped, but shortly returned with a monumental plate of eggs and pancakes that caused Marshall to wonder how King got that huge breakfast. The answer was simple: "I asked for it!" Although in some doubt as to whether he could eat his way through what he had brought on himself, the food tasted so good after a week in wartime London that King eventually disposed of it. He then in Navy fashion thanked the mess officer, asked to look over the galley, and congratulated and shook hands with the cooks."

"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.""

"Every naval officer has a job to do. He should do that job out of a sense of duty and should not get recognition for having done what he has been trained to do. His only reward should be the satisfaction of knowing that he has done the job well and to the best of his ability."

"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."

"The admirals' academy careers are a study in contrasts. King made the best record. He was one of the lucky plebes who reached the Caribbean during the Spanish-American War, although he missed the Battle of Santiago. A star man in academic standing and a member of the junior varsity football team, the Hustlers, throughout his four years at the academy, in his first-class year he was chosen to command the battalion and graduated number four in a class of sixty-seven. His last year was dangerous, however. Put on report three times for smoking, he narrowly escaped a spell in the Santee and invited much more serious trouble by Frenching out to visit a girl in Annapolis. On one occasion a friend, learning of an unscheduled inspection at 10:00pm, loyally frenched out himself to bring King back on time. A few years later King was assigned to the Executive Department at the academy. At dinner with the midshipmen in Bancroft Hall one evening he was asked if he had ever frenched out. He admitted that he had. The next question was, "Did you ever get caught?" "No," King replied, "but I almost did." "How did you manage not to?" the midshipman persisted. "I am afraid I cannot tell you now," King parried, "but when you graduate, come out to my house and I will give you a drink and tell you how to French out and not be caught.""

"Then, as the troops again presented arms, the firing squad fired three volleys, and as the bugler sounded "Taps", the last of the seventeen-gun salute boomed out from across the river. The bodybearers folded the flag, gave it to King's son, and after a few minutes of quiet conversation, the mourners scattered. Nothing could have been at once more simpler and more magnificent, or more appropriate to the man. But to most of the midshipmen at the grave, King- and indeed Nimitz, Halsey, and Hewitt, who were among his pallbearers- must have seemed as distant figures as Dewey, Farragut, or even the sailors of the earliest wars of the Republic. The Class of 1958 is two full generations removed from the Class of 1901, and to a very young man this degree of remoteness borders on that of eternity. So rapidly do great men cease to be people and become instead names, portraits, or statues, curiously familiar, yet personally unknown. The speed of this process has led me to offer this perhaps discursive tribute of affection and respect to a figure of naval history that I had the good fortune, in his last years, to know as a man, rather than as a name."

"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."

"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."

"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.""

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Initiative means freedom to act, but it does not mean freedom to act in an offhand or casual manner."

"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."

"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."

"With Forrestal as Navy secretary, King knew retirement would follow quickly. He had gotten along with Knox only because the Chicago newsman knew nothing about the Navy, admitted it, and stayed out of King's way. Forrestal would not. During the war, King had cursed Forrestal out in the halls of the Navy Department, and had browbeaten him into staying out of naval operations. "I didn't like him, and he didn't like me," King said."

"In all my conversations with Admiral King I have been forcibly struck by the essential simplicity of his mind and his manner, by his concentration on broad general principles, and by his complete lack of interest in the smaller details of problems or personalities."

"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."

"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."

"One thing that might help win this war is to get someone to shoot King. He's the antithesis of cooperation, a deliberately rude person, which means he's a mental bully. He became Commander in Chief of the fleet some time ago. Today he takes over, also, Stark's job as Chief of Naval Operations. It's a good thing to get rid of the double head of the Navy, and of course Stark was just a nice old lady, but this fellow is going to cause a blow-up sooner or later, I'll bet a cookie."