"King's attitude was a paradox. He griped about too many people getting decorations, but he refused to establish a policy that would end the confusion. Nimitz was his voice of conscience, besieging King to approve the Purple Heart or to define different grades for the Legion of Merit. But it was futile. King did nothing. Nimitz tried to force the issue at their January 1944 meeting in San Francisco by demanding a formal board to standardize the awarding of decorations. All the services had different rules, argued Nimitz, and the Army Air Force was notably generous. If the services could not agree on a common policy, then the President should act. King stalled with a promise to study the problem. King's thinking began to change in June 1944. Just before King had left to watch the Normandy landings, Abby Dunlap had warned him that when the war was over the Army Air Force would get all the credit and the Navy would be forgotten. King thought she was too pessimistic. But when he next saw Abby and Betsy Matter following the invasion, he told Abby she had been right."
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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
Thomas B. Buell, Master of Sea Power: A Biography of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King (1980), Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, hardcover, p. 382
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ernest_King
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Ernest King
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