United States Naval Academy Alumni

"Our meeting with Admiral Leighton Smith, on the other hand, did not go well. He had been in charge of the NATO air strikes in August and September [1995], and this gave him enormous credibility, especially with the Bosnian Serbs. Smith was also the beneficiary of a skillful public relations effort that cast him as the savior of Bosnia. In a long profile, Newsweek had called him "a complex warrior and civilizer, a latter-day George C. Marshall." This was quite a journalistic stretch, given the fact that Smith considered the civilian aspects of the task beneath him and not his job — quite the opposite of what General Marshall stood for. After a distinguished thirty-three-year Navy career, including almost three hundred combat missions in Vietnam, Smith was well qualified for his original post as commander of NATO's southern forces and Commander in Chief of all U.S. naval forces in Europe. But he was the wrong man for his additional assignment as IFOR commander, which was the result of two bureaucratic compromises, one with the French, the other with the American military. General Joulwan rightly wanted the sixty thousand IFOR soldiers to have as their commanding officer an Army general trained in the use of ground forces. But Paris insisted that if Joulwan named a separate Bosnia commander, it would have to be a Frenchman. This was politically impossible for the United States; thus, the Franh objections left only one way to preserve an American chain of command — to give the job to Admiral Smith, who joked that he was now known as "General" Smith. … On the military goals of Dayton, he was fine; his plans for separating the forces along the line we had drawn in Dayton and protecting his forces were first-rate. But he was hostile to any suggestions that IFOR help implement any nonmilitary portion of the agreement. This, he said repeatedly, was not his job. Based on Shalikashvili's statement at White House meetings, Christopher and I had assumed that the IFOR commander would use his authority to do substantially more than he was obligated to do. The meeting with Smith shattered that hope. Smith and his British deputy, General Michael Walker, made clear that they intended to take a minimalist approach to all aspects of implementation other than force protection. Smith signaled this in his first extensive public statement to the Bosnian people, during a live call-in program on Pale Television — an odd choice for his first local media appearance. During the program, he answered a question in a manner that dangerously narrowed his own authority. He later told Newsweek about it with a curious pride: "One of the questions I was asked was, "Admiral, is it true that IFOR is going to arrest Serbs in the Serb suburbs of Sarajevo?" I said, "Absolutely not, I don't have the authority to arrest anybody"." This was an inaccurate way to describe IFOR's mandate. It was true IFOR was not supposed to make routine arrests of ordinary citizens. But IFOR had the authority to arrest indicted war criminals, and could also detain anyone who posed a threat to its forces. Knowing what the question meant, Smith had sent an unfortunate signal of reassurance to Karadzic — over his own network."

"With Leighton Smith in charge, we've got a Navy admiral running a predominantly land campaign — the first ever in NATO's 47-year history. … As the U.S. continues to withdraw from overseas bases, Naval Forces will become even more relevant in meeting American forward presence requirements."

"When we went to Bosnia the people in Bosnia welcomed us with open arms, and I would go down the street and people would come up and say, "Admiral, thank you for bringing peace to Bosnia." And my standard answer was this, "I cannot bring peace to this country. Only you can bring peace to this country. I can bring the conditions in which peace can be established, but I cannot bring peace to this country." So the mistake we have made in our country, if we have made a mistake, is that we believe that we can influence or that we can enforce a peace, and we cannot. You can stop the fighting, and we did. And you can put money into a country and you can try to build it up so that the momentum you get from a visible economic engine creates a condition where peace will take hold. But that requires a political will that is not today evident in Bosnia. It was certainly not evident when I was there. I think we are doing the right thing to put our military into these kinds of operations. No one is better able to do it. Peacekeeping is not a soldier function, but only soldiers can do it, because we've got the organization. We can make things happen in a hurry."

"I had a role in developing the doctrine From the Sea, which was later modified to Forward From the Sea. But the way we looked at the situation was that the world we live in is a dangerous place. There's a violent peace out there, there are going to be problems over the horizon, and certainly that proved to be true."

"I remember a picture I saw in a paper not long before the wall came down. There was a man standing holding a very young daughter, my guess was that she was only about one or two years old. She had on a rather plain dress, he had on a coat and a tie and he was carrying probably a cardboard suitcase. And my guess is that everything he owned in the world was in that suitcase. And he was weeping. He wasn't weeping because he left his car and the rest of his family back on the other side of that Iron Curtain; he was weeping because he was free. He was weeping because now he had opportunity, he had the chance to choose for the first time in his life, and his daughter whom he was holding in his hands had a future, whereas before she would not have had one. That struck me as a very, very vivid picture of what this all meant."

"The Naval Academy is a very prestigious place, and I choose to try it. I got there and darn near didn't pass, just about flunked out the first year, but a commandant by the name of Bush Bringle managed to call me in one day and taught me more about leadership in about 15 minutes than I have learned in the rest of my life. And because of Bush Bringle I regained some faith and confidence in myself, learning I had a little bit more in me than I thought, and I went back to work and finished."

"He graduated seventh- that mystic, lucky number- in the Annapolis Class of 1905. Already his classmates had him fairly well pegged. "Possesses that calm and steady-going Dutch way that gets to the bottom of things," read the Naval Academy's class book, Lucky Bag. He brought to his new command in Hawaii a solid if unspectacular background in submarines, battleships, cruisers, and Navy headquarters positions. Infinitely more important, he brought a mind, heart and spirit equal to the task. The thundering challenges, the crushing responsibilities of the Pacific command were to prove over the years that here was one of America's great men in the tradition of Robert E. Lee, whom he resembled in temperament, character, and ability."

"Superficially, Nimitz promised little in the way of picturesque "copy," for he was no exhibitionist and never raised his voice. If he had an eccentricity, it was a mild addiction to the homely pastime of pitching horseshoes. Nor did he look in the least like the popular conception of a gruff old sea dog. In fact, he appeared startlingly youthful, although his once incredibly blond hair had turned so white that some, behind his back, nicknamed him "Cottontail." He had a fresh, fine-textured complexion, and only the lines which experience and humor had etched at his nostrils and candid, steel-blue eyes, gave any hint of his fifty-seven years."

"Tell Nimitz to get the hell out to Pearl and stay there till the war is won."

"The Admiral was frequently the despair of his public relations men; it simply was not in him to make sweeping statements or to give out colorful interviews."

"While MacArthur was a forceful and colorful personality, a man of dramatic gestures and rhetoric, Nimitz was soft-spoken and relaxed, a team player, a leader by example rather than exhortation. "The Admiral was frequently the despair of his public relations men," wrote correspondent Robert Sherrod; "it simply was not in him to make sweeping statements or give out colorful interviews." An officer recalled that during tense moments, while awaiting word of the outcome of important operations or battles, Nimitz would joke with his staff "while he calmly practised on his pistol range or tossed ringers with horseshoes just outside his office." By contrast, at such moments MacArthur "would as a rule sit stonily in his chair, chewing on the stem of a corncob pipe.""

"There were contrasts as well in the two men's relations with Washington. According to one of King's biographers, Thomas Buell, the Chief of Naval Operations "never entirely trusted Nimitz's judgment," believing him to be too susceptible to bad advice and too ready to compromise with the Army. Throughout the war, King held frequent personal meetings with Nimitz, usually in San Francisco or Hawaii. By contrast, Marshall saw Army theater commanders in Europe infrequently, and MacArthur only once. King's numerous conferences with Nimitz may indeed "indicate the extent of King's anxiety to keep Nimitz under his thumb; they may also have reflected King's special interest in directing Pacific strategy."

"Nimitz and MacArthur differed radically in style of command. Whereas Nimitz came to Pearl Harbor virtually alone, retaining many of the members of Kimmel's staff, MacArthur brought with him from the Philippines a group of loyal and deferential- critics said sycophantic- subordinates who served as his key staff officers and assistants throughout the war. In the course of his campaigns MacArthur later developed other close personal relationships, with General Robert Eichelberger, Admiral Thomas Kinkaid, General George C. Kenney- even to some extent with Admiral Halsey- but the ascendancy of "the Bataan gang" was never challenged."

"Chester Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, was a mild-mannered Texan promoted past 28 officers to take over after Pearl Harbor."

"We shall never forget that it was our submarines that held the lines against the enemy while our fleets replaced losses and repaired wounds."

"Nimitz came the academy in 1901, the year one of its texts provoked the notorious Sampson-Schley controversy. The book as the third volume of Edgar S. Maclay's History of the United States Navy, which covered the Spanish-American War. Maclay charged that Commodore Schley, who with Dewey and Sampson had emerged as one of the war's naval heroes, had bungled the search for Cervera and lost his nerve at the Battle of Santiago. The outraged Schley demanded that the work be withdrawn from the academy, which it was. Unfortunately, Schley did not stop there. He also demanded a court of inquiry to investigate his conduct throughout the entire war. This had the effect of polarizing naval opinion into two hostile camps, one of which agreed with Macley's interpretation and held that Sampson deserved all the credit for Santiago, while the other supported Schley. The court did not help matters by turning in a majority report condemning Schley and a majority report exonerating him. The publicity attracted by this unseemly squabble proved an embarrassment to the navy as a whole, and the episode seems to have left a lasting impression on the minds of the midshipmen of Nimitz's generation. The extreme tact most of them later observed in discussing the command decisions they made as admirals in World War Two proceeded in part from a determination to avoid any more Sampson-Schley controversies."

"Like King, Nimitz did well at the academy. A midshipman company commander, he graduated seventh in a class of 114 and pulled stroke on the varsity crew. And like King, he came close to disaster in his first-class year. At its beginning, his class was moved into the completed wing of Bancroft Hall. Nimitz was assigned a room on the third floor, from which he and his friends discovered a way to reach the roof of one of the wings still under construction. There they held moonlight beer parties, dropping their empties to explode with a gratifying crash on the blocks of granite piled below. One day it fell to Nimitz to pick up the beer from the back room of an obliging Maryland Avenue tailor. Also present at the tailor's was a distinguished-looking stranger in civilian clothes. At the next meeting of his navigation class, Nimitz was aghast to find the distinguished stranger at its head, this time in uniform. He was Lieutenant Commander Levi C. Bertolette, '87, who had just joined the academy staff. Certain that he was recognized, Nimitz awaited the summons that might herald his dismissal from the academy. It never came. Although it may have been simply that Bertolette did not place him, Nimitz was convinced that he had decided to give him another chance. years later, he commented, "This escapade taught me a lesson on how to behave for the remainder of my stay at the academy.""

"Nimitz did not take command of the fleet immediately. He spent his first week getting to know the lay of the land, with Pye often at his side. Rising each day at 6:30 a.m., he did some exercises, dressed, had breakfast, and arrived at the fleet headquarters at eight. The admiral had a phenomenally good memory for faces, and surprised old colleagues and subordinates by remembering their names. Lieutenant Commander Jasper Holmes had once served as an obscure junior engineering officer in a submarine division commanded by Nimitz. "He had little reason to remember me," wrote Holmes, but when the two men came face to face in a corridor, the new C-in-C not only greeted the younger man by name but evidently knew details of his subsequent service record."

"William Ewing, a reporter with the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, thought Nimitz seemed too "kindly," too "fatherly," and his khaki uniform seemed at least one size too large. "I thought Admiral Nimitz looked more like a retired banker than the kind of hell-for-leather leader we needed to pull us out of the worst hole the country had ever been in." The remark anticipated Samuel Eliot Morison's observation that "war correspondents who expected admirals to pound the table and bellow as in the movies, were apt to wonder 'Is this the man?'" It was true that Nimitz was not a cinematic naval hero in the mold of Nelson, Decatur or Jones. Like most American officers of his vintage, he had no experience of combat. He had never even seen a shot fired in anger. But the fleet did not need a show of blood and thunder after the beating it had suffered; there was plenty of the real stuff to go around. Nimitz was an executive, a strategist, and a leader. He was a gentleman of the old school. It was not in him to shout or abuse the furniture or let a word of profanity fall from his lips. Holmes took comfort in the admiral's "aura of calm confidence" while Edwin Layton thought "the incisive thrust of his questions... made it clear that he was steeled for the tremendous task he was to assume.""

"Nimitz crossed the dock to the headquarters and climbed the stairs to his office. He called the senior staff into the room. Having been stationed at Pearl Harbor before the Japanese attack, and having witnessed the craven recall of the Wake relief force, many of those officers carried an enervating burden of guilt, akin to a feeling of personal disgrace. They expected to be shunted off into dead-end billets for the remainder of the war, and many hoped only to be sent to sea, with a chance to redeem themselves in combat. Nimitz saw the problem clearly and understood what had to be done. "These were all fine men," he later said, "but they had just undergone a terrible shock, and it was my first duty to restore morale and to salvage these fine officers for future use, and this I proceeded to do." He spoke briefly, in a low tone. "I know most of you here," he said, "and I have complete confidence in your ability and judgment. We've taken a whale of a wallop, but I have no doubt of the ultimate outcome." December 7 would not be held against them. They were needed, and must remain, at their posts. He would listen to requests for seagoing assignments, but "certain key members of the staff I insist I want to keep." "In a very few minutes of speaking softly," one such officer recalled, "Admiral Nimitz convinced all hands of his ability to lead us out of this.""

"In the U.S. Navy of 1942, ever admiral knew every other admiral, at least by name and face. But King and Nimitz had never been close, either personally or professionally. King's overbearing domination drew a sharp contrast to Nimitz's soft-spoken collegiality, and if it had been up to the new COMINCH to name Kimmel's replacement, it is safe to assume he would have chosen someone else. In letters to his wife, the Texan confided that he and King had not yet established trust or rapport. He would have to tread lightly, for when the COMINCH lost confidence in a man, the consequences were felt immediately."

"Admiral Nimitz was a very perceptive officer who recognized logic when he saw it."

"Nimitz decided to apply for admission to West Point after talking to two young army officers who stopped at the Kerrville hotel. Informed by his congressman that no appointments were available at the Military Academy, he accepted the offer of one to the Naval Academy, of which until that moment he had never even heard."

"I felt that it was an unnecessary loss of civilian life... We had them beaten. They hadn't enough food, they couldn't do anything."

"The enemy of our games was always Japan, and the courses were so thorough that after the start of World War II, nothing that happened in the Pacific was strange or unexpected."

"The war with Japan had been enacted in the game rooms at the War College by so many people and in so many different ways that nothing that happened during the war was a surprise—absolutely nothing except the kamikaze tactics toward the end of the war. We had not visualized these."

"Hindsight is notably cleverer than foresight."

"I do believe we are going to have a major war, with Japan and Germany, and that the war is going to start by a very serious surprise attack and defeat of U.S. armed forces, and that there is going to be a major revulsion on the part of the political power in Washington against all those in command at sea, and they are going to be thrown out, though it won't be their fault necessarily. And I wish to be in a position of sufficient prominence so that I will then be considered as one to be sent to sea, because that appears to be the route."

"A ship is always referred to as "she" because it costs so much to keep her in paint and powder."

"Naval fleets probably never again will fight in full force... No government today can afford to run the risk of staking its entire naval force on a single battle. Therefore, it is probable that in the future fighting will be done by special units. These will be organized according to the requirements of the tasks assigned to them. One mission might require only a few cruisers, a number of destroyers, an aircraft carrier and some submarines. Another might require a battleship or two."

"Well, you were only five miles, five degrees, and five minutes off."

"Through the skill and devotion to duty of their armed forces of all branches in the Midway area our citizens can now rejoice that a momentous victory is in the making. It was on a Sunday just six months ago that the Japanese made their peace‑time attack on our fleet and army activities on Oahu. At that time they created heavy damage, it is true, but their act aroused the grim determination of our citizenry to avenge such treachery, and it raised, not lowered, the morale of our fighting men. Pearl Harbor has now been partially avenged. Vengeance will not be complete until Japanese sea power has been reduced to impotence. We have made substantial progress in that direction. Perhaps we will be forgiven if we claim we are about midway to our objective!"

"Is the proposed operation likely to succeed? What might be the consequences of failure? Is it in the realm of practicability in terms of matériel and supplies?"

"By their victory, the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Divisions and other units of the Fifth Amphibious Corps have made an accounting to their country which only history will be able to value fully. Among the Americans serving on Iwo island, uncommon valor was a common virtue."

"CEASE OFFENSIVE OPERATIONS AGAINST JAPANESE FORCES. CONTINUE SEARCH AND PATROLS. MAINTAIN DEFENSIVE AND INTERNAL SECURITY MEASURES AT HIGHEST LEVEL AND BEWARE OF TREACHERY OR LAST MOMENT ATTACKS BY ENEMY FORCES ON INDIVIDUALS."

"On board all vessels at sea and in port, and at our many island bases in the Pacific, there is rejoicing and thanksgiving. The long and bitter struggle, which Japan started so treacherously on the 7th of December 1941, is at an end. I take great pride in the American forces which have helped to win this victory. America can be proud of them. The officers and men of the United States Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and merchant marine who fought in the Pacific have written heroic new chapters in this Nation's military history. I have infinite respect for their courage, resourcefulness, and devotion to duty. We also acknowledge the great contribution to this victory made by our valiant Allies. United we fought and united we prevail. The port of Tokyo, which was first opened by Commodore Perry in 1853, is now crowded with United States men-of-war. The process of bringing Japan into the family of civilized nations, which was interrupted when Japan launched her program of conquest, will soon begin again."

"Today all freedom-loving peoples of the world rejoice in the victory and feel pride in the accomplishments of our combined forces. We also pay tribute to those who defended our freedom at the cost of their lives. On Guam is a military cemetery in a green valley not far from my headquarters. The ordered rows of white crosses stand as reminders of the heavy cost we have paid for victory. On these crosses are the names of American soldiers, sailors and marines — Culpepper, Tomaino, Sweeney, Bromberg, Depew, Melloy, Ponziani — names that are a cross-section of democracy. They fought together as brothers in arms; they died together and now they sleep side by side. To them we have a solemn obligation — the obligation to insure that their sacrifice will help to make this a better and safer world in which to live. … Now we turn to the great tasks of reconstruction and restoration. I am confident that we will be able to apply the same skill, resourcefulness, and keen thinking to these problems as were applied to the problems of winning the victory."

"The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into war. ... The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan."

"Sir Walter Raleigh declared in the early 17th century that "whoever commands the sea, commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself." This principle is as true today as when uttered, and its effect will continue as long as ships traverse the seas."

"The United States possesses today control of the sea more absolute than was possessed by the British. Our interest in this control is not riches and power as such. It is first the assurance of our national security, and, second, the creation and perpetuation of that balance and stability among nations which will insure to each the right of self-determination under the framework of the United Nations Organization."

"Our present control of the sea is so absolute that it is sometimes taken for granted."

"Our present undisputed control of the sea was achieved primarily through the employment of naval air-sea forces in the destruction of Japanese and German sea power. It was consolidated by the subsequent reduction of these nations to their present impotence, in which the employment of naval air-sea forces against land objectives played a vital role. It can be perpetuated only through the maintenance of balanced naval forces of all categories adequate to our strategic needs (which include those of the non-totalitarian world), and which can flexibly adjust to new modes of air-sea warfare and which are alert to develop and employ new weapons and techniques as needed."

"The basic objectives and principles of war do not change. The final objective in war is the destruction of the enemy's capacity and will to fight, and thereby force him to accept the imposition of the victor's will. This submission has been accomplished in the past by pressure in and from each of the elements of land and sea, and during World War I and II, in and from the air as well. The optimum of pressure is exerted through that absolute control obtained by actual physical occupation. This optimum is obtainable only on land where physical occupation can be consolidated and maintained."

"If we are to project our power against the vital areas of any enemy across the ocean before beachheads on enemy territory are captured, it must be by air-sea power; by aircraft launched from carriers; and by heavy surface ships and submarines projecting guided missiles and rockets. If present promise is developed by research, test and production, these three types of air-sea power operating in concert will be able within the next ten years critically to damage enemy vital areas many hundreds of miles inland. Naval task forces including these types are capable of remaining at sea for months. This capability has raised to a high point the art of concentrating air power within effective range of enemy objectives."

"Naval forces are able, without resorting to diplomatic channels, to establish offshore anywhere in the world, air fields completely equipped with machine shops, ammunition dumps, tank farms, warehouses, together with quarters and all types of accommodations for personnel. Such task forces are virtually as complete as any air base ever established. They constitute the only air bases that can be made available near enemy territory without assault and conquest; and furthermore, they are mobile offensive bases, that can be employed with the unique attributes of secrecy and surprise — which attributes contribute equally to their defensive as well as offensive effectiveness."

"When I assumed command of the Pacific Fleet in 31 December, 1941; our submarines were already operating against the enemy, the only units of the Fleet that could come to grips with the Japanese for months to come. It was to the Submarine Force that I looked to carry the load until our great industrial activity could produce the weapons we so sorely needed to carry the war to the enemy. It is to the everlasting honor and glory of our submarine personnel that they never failed us in our days of peril."

"The U.S.'s major strength factor and weapon is its economy. If you cripple it, you cripple the military."

"That is not to say that we can relax our readiness to defend ourselves. Our armament must be adequate to the needs, but our faith is not primarily in these machines of defense but in ourselves."

"God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right even though I think it is hopeless."

"Once A Marine should become required reading for the young men of our country. It is a success story which highlights the fact that there is still room at the top for young men of courage, determination and the average educational advantages available to all our young people. General Vandegrift, perhaps more than any other Marine, added luster and glory to our elite Corps that had already won enviable battle honors during its long history of military achievement. His long and successful struggle to hold Guadalcanal against seemingly overwhelming odds will live long in military history. Many veterans of the Marine Corps and of the sister services who participated or were associated in the Guadalcanal episode of World War II will relive their experience in reading Once A Marine. And this includes yours truly who, perforce, had to witness this struggle from afar."