"In the wake of the Pearl Harbor disaster, President Roosevelt made sweeping changes in the navy high command. When word of these changes reached the submarine force, there were cheers. The key people, it seemed, were all submariners. First, and most important, Roosevelt named Admiral Ernest Joseph King, Jr., to the post of Commander in Chief, United States Fleet, and Chief of Naval Operations, replacing Admiral Stark. King had commanded the Submarine Base at New London and a division of S-boats and had played a key role in salvaging two sunken submarines in the 1920s, the S-51 and the S-4. Although King had never commanded a submarine, he wore the dolphin insignia plus his aviator's wings. Second, King appointed former submariner Chester Nimitz to replace Kimmel (and Pye) as Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet. After his submarine service before and during World War I, Nimitz had established the Submarine Base at Pearl Harbor and then commanded a division of early fleet boats, including Barracuda, Bass, and Bonita. King's staff in Washington was laced with submariners. For his deputy chief of staff he named Richard Edwards, then commanding Submarines Atlantic. Edwards, who would eventually become King's right arm, had commanded a squadron of fleet boats, and the Submarine Base at New London and had helped Lockwood fight for the Tambor class before the General Board in 1938. For his operations officer, King picked Francis Stuart ("Frog") Low, another submariner. Later, King appointed one-time submariner Charles Maynard ("Savvy") Cooke to be Assistant Chief of Staff for War Plans."
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Military leaders from the United StatesLegion of Honour recipientsPeople from ClevelandAviators from the United StatesNavy Cross recipients
Original Language: English
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Sources
Clay Blair, Jr., Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan (1975), p. 125
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ernest_King
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Ernest King
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