Stern Ernie King and chivalrous Chester Nimitz were not the shallow stereotypes contemporary historians have sketched. Both could smile and snarl. And both, together with Admirals Halsey and Spruance, deserve more definitive biographies than they have thus far received.
The character and personality of the admiral and of the general have always been of professional as well as popular interest. They are of professional interest because character and personality, equally with intellect and training, enter into leadership and decision-making. The way they enter differs somewhat as regards the tactical commander and the strategic commander. That is because the tactical commander, particularly at sea, must usually make his decisions without consultation, whereas in modern warfare the strategic commander nearly always makes his decisions in conference or as the result of conference. General Dwight D. Eisenhower went so far as to say: “It is my conviction that no commander could normally take oath that a particular plan or conception originated within his own mind.”
If the commander as a person is worthy of professional attention in the study of warfare, it is important to point out that we may lose a clear understanding of our top World War II naval commanders, strategic and tactical, through lack of adequate, timely biographies, through lack or loss of biographical sources, and through misconceptions or stereotyping.
The longest biography of any American World War II naval leader is the 600,000-word Fleet Admiral King, “as told” by Chief of Naval Operations King to Walter Muir Whitehill. This book is subtitled “A Naval Record,” and it is exactly that. Personalities scarcely emerge, least of all King’s.
In the memory of naval officers who served in World War II, King was rough, tough, and brilliant; some would say mean, tough, and brilliant. Ladislas Farago, in The Tenth Fleet, has described this stereotype most strikingly “Tall, gaunt and taut, with a high dome, piercing eyes, aquiline nose, and a firm jaw, he looked somewhat like Hogarth’s etching of Don Quixote but he had none of the old knight’s fancy dreams. He was a supreme realist with the arrogance of genius. . . . He was a grim taskmaster, as hard on himself as others. He rarely cracked a smile and had neither time nor disposition for ephemeral pleasantries. He inspired respect but not love, and King wanted it that way.”
In his History of U. S. Naval Operations in World War II, Samuel Eliot Morison echoes that last point, saying that King “was more feared than loved.”
Of King’s brilliance there can be no question. For a single example of his strategic insight, on 2 March 1942, when Americans were making a last stand on Bataan, when Java was about to fall, when the apparently invincible Japanese were on the march everywhere—at this grim period Admiral King laid before the startled Joint Chiefs of Staff a plan for an Allied offensive via the New Hebrides, the Solomons, and the Bismarcks. “In other words,” says Morison, “he anticipated the entire course of the war in the South Pacific to the middle of 1944.”
Without much thought, I accepted a cold, harsh, aloof, and humorless King, particularly since my own fleeting contacts with the Admiral had tended to confirm it. Then, in 1967, I received from Ladislas Farago a letter in which he went into his wartime relationship with Admiral King. Wrote Farago: “I had every reason to love him with all the gratitude and devotion at my command.” This is the Farago who stated that King “inspired respect but not love.” Farago went on: “I found him more human, more accessible, and more intellectually competent than the starched man that emerges from his strange biography. I would like to see nothing more than a biography that does justice to him.”
On this hint I began questioning everybody I encountered who had been associated with
Admiral King, particularly during World War II. My quest culminated with long taped interviews with two of King’s wartime flag secretaries, retired Vice Admirals George L. Russell and George C. Dyer, U. S. Navy.
King, these men confirmed, was indeed tough. He had a low boiling point. He was intolerant of stupidity, inefficiency, and laziness. He hated dishonesty and pretension, despised yes-men, and had no patience with indecisive Hamlet-types. And he could be ruthless. On one occasion, for example, he sent one of his aides, a commander, to relieve a rear admiral—with orders that the rear admiral be out of the Navy Department by three o’clock that afternoon.
I learned, too, that the supposedly monolithic King had a weakness. He was not at his best in judging men. As one of King’s associates put it, “Every great man has a blind spot and his was personnel.” Several cases may be cited of King’s placing the wrong man in the wrong spot for the wrong reason.
I was convinced that in modern warfare a high-level decision-making body could not be run by fear. My investigation proved this theory to be correct. Once an officer gained King’s confidence and respect, King, in his dealings with him, would drop his rigid demeanor and could be delightfully informal. He was not witty, but he had a sense of humor, not subtle but hearty. His relations with those he admitted into his intimacy were warm and friendly.
“I notice,” I said to Admiral Dyer, “that all able people who served with King wound up with affection for him.”
“Oh, tremendous affection,” said Dyer. Dyer’s relationship with Admiral King began when the United States entered World War II. Dyer, then a commander, was in the Pacific as executive officer of the Indianapolis. Before the war was a month old, he received orders to report to Washington for some unspecified “special duty.” On arriving, he was crestfallen to learn that he was to be Admiral King’s flag secretary.
When Dyer reported to King for duty, the Admiral sat looking him over. Finally he said, “You look unhappy.”
“I am unhappy,” replied Dyer. “I was executive officer of a fine cruiser in the war zone and I find myself ordered to shore duty in Washington. Why shouldn’t I be unhappy?”
Another long pause.
“I tell you why you’re here,” said King at last, “you may be just a little less unhappy. I was told by an officer for whose judgment I have great respect that if I wanted an officer would spit in my eye when it was necessary to spit, I should send for you.”*
King the arose, shook hands, and said, “There’s lots of work to be done. Let’s get to it.”
“I had a wonderful year with him,” says Dyer. “We had many terrible disputes in which he called me all kinds of names, but I never really had a problem. If you followed his strict rules, and if you produced, you had absolutely no trouble.”
Dyer’s first job was to arrange for office space. Studying World War I records and finding that Admiral Sims had had had a staff of 387, Dyer planned space for a staff of 400 for King. When he produced his report, King hit the overhead. He had, he said, run the Atlantic Fleet with a staff of 14, and he was damned if he was going to have a staff of more than 50 as CominCh.
At the end of a year, in accordance with King’s rotation policy, Dyer went back to sea. Wounded at Salerno, he spent four months in the naval hospital at Bethesda. On his arrival at Bethesda, Captain Dyer received a note from King. When his wounds were nearly healed, he received another, in which King invited Dyer to pay him a call.
“Of course,” says Dyer, “I was anxious to go down and see him. I was fond of him.”
When he at length again entered King’s office, the Admiral watched Dyer limp toward him, new medals on his chest. Finally King said with a small grin, “Ah, the returning war hero!”
“When I wrote you that invitation to call,” continued King, “George Russell had just laid a piece of paper on my desk and I wanted you to see it.”
Dyer took the piece of paper from King. It said that King’s staff then numbered 416.
We now come to Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz. I believe that Nimitz’ personality as a wartime leader has also become a stereotype, though of a very different sort from that of Admiral King. The only biography of Nimitz that has appeared so far is my 15,000-word sketch in the U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings of July 1966, which was written the week following his death.
It is a great pity that Admiral Nimitz did not write, or permit anyone else to write, his biography while he was alive. At one time he seemed inclined to let me do so, but when the Naval Institute in 1963 formally requested his assent and assistance in writing his biography, recommending me as author, Nimitz declined.
“I have long ago decided,” he wrote, “that my biography should be written by my four children.”
The trouble was that neither Admiral Nimitz’ son nor any of his daughters felt capable of writing the biography, or, at any rate, the sort of biography they felt their father deserved. Moreover, Nimitz was opposed to the publishing of any narrative of his wartime experiences while he was alive. In 1965, he tentatively agreed to supply me with information for such an article in a World War II memorial edition of Paris-Match. Later, however, he telephoned me and canceled the agreement.
Nimitz’ reluctance derived from what I can only call his obsessive discretion. He was annoyed by what he called the “rushing into print” by military and naval leaders, many reviving old controversies or starting new ones. Nimitz’ discretion did not inhibit his private conversations with friends. He loved to reminisce about his wartime experiences and could be astonishingly frank.
When it came to making any sort of permanent record, however, Nimitz clammed up. He would commit nothing to tape and in his last years refused to speak on television or radio. Between 1956 and 1965 he wrote me 89 letters, nearly all by hand, some running several pages. Many of the letters, of course, concern the book Sea Power that he and I were working on, but others deal with a variety of subjects. All are warm and friendly, but none are of any great historical interest, because whenever the letters touch on wartime or official matters, they become very general, revealing no details.
Before he died, Nimitz turned his records over to the Division of Naval History. These, however, are mostly official papers, revealing little of Nimitz the man. Nimitz never heard a shot fired in anger in any war, he never engaged in public controversy, he was married once—happily. Might not a biography of him, written chiefly from official records, turn out to be a bland affair—as bland, say, as the Whitehill biography of King? Luckily, another source is available in Nimitz’ still-living friends and associates, and his biography is now being written by a scholar who can resurrect his personality if anybody can. The writer is Allan Nevins.
Still, I wonder if Nimitz’ friends and associates are the most reliable of sources. It seems to me that the wartime Nimitz they are remembering is another stereotype. This is the Nimitz of later years, the sage of San Francisco Bay. To the shrine of this kindly old man, at Berkeley and later on, Treasure Island, came large numbers of officers to pay homage and to talk Navy. Much of the early Nimitz was still there: the courtesy, the serenity, the exquisite balance of powers, the largeness of mind and the natural gaiety of spirit that enabled him actually to enjoy his immense responsibilities in World War II.
But Nimitz had ceased to reveal other characteristics that had marked him as a wartime leader. I refer particularly to his toughness and to his daring. “You know,” Nimitz’ driver of many years once said to me, “Admiral Nimitz used to be a lot more stern than he is now.” Said Admiral George Russell: “Admiral Nimitz was a lot tougher than he’s ever been given credit for.”
The truth of Admiral Russell’s observation was demonstrated when the typescript of my Nimitz biography was submitted to several officers who had served closely with Admiral Nimitz in the war. I had ascribed, on good authority, several harsh remarks to Nimitz. His friends to a man insisted that these be deleted, saying, “This doesn’t sound like Nimitz. I don’t believe he said it.” Significantly, Chester Nimitz, Jr., suggested no changes at all. Perhaps the son, more than others, remembered his Daddy’s hard side. The fact is that Nimitz was not explosive but he could, and did, make strong men wince with his measured words.
In thinking of the gentle old man of Nimitz’ later years, we tend to forget also his extraordinary daring in World War II. On 28 May 1942, for example, when, through cryptanalysis, Nimitz knew that the entire Japanese Navy was heading for Midway and the Aleutians with several times the strength he could muster in defense—at this dire moment Nimitz recommended landing Marines in the Guadalcanal-Tulagi area. They could, he said, make good their position and build an airstrip before the enemy fleet, now all the North and Central Pacific, could fight its battle and redeploy to the South. At that time, however, Guadalcanal was in General MacArthur’s area of command, and MacArthur vetoed the proposal as too risky.
A second example is Nimitz’ plan for the invasion of the Marshall Islands in early 1944.After the shock of the heavy losses at Tarawa, Nimitz’ commanders recommended a cautious plan for taking the Marshalls, in two bites—outer islands first, then Kwajalein, the big Japanese headquarters at the center of the archipelago. To their shocked surprise, Nimitz proposed by-passing the outer islands and assaulting Kwajalein alone—an opera-bon that would leave the outer islands on the American line of communications. Admiral Nimitz called a conference in which he addressed each admiral and general by name and asked his opinion regarding what should be their first objective. The reply of each and every officer was, “Outer islands.”
After a pause Nimitz announced quietly, “Well, gentlemen, our next target will be Kwajalein.”
Afterwards, Nimitz’ senior subordinates, tee Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, and Marine Major General Holland M. Smith, came to Nimitz and protested his decision. Nimitz heard them out and then, without raising his voice, said, “Sitting behind desks in the United States are able officers who would give their right arms to be out here fighting war. If you gentlemen can’t bring yourselves to carry out my orders, I can arrange an exchange of duty with stateside officers who can. Make up your minds. You have five minutes.
This statement by Admiral Nimitz, which originally appeared in my typescript, drew such violent protests from the Admiral’s former associates that I finally deleted it in the interests of peace and harmony. Nevertheless, I had considerable confidence in the accuracy of the quotation, since my source was Admiral Nimitz himself.
It goes without saying that the protesting subordinates carried out the assault. As it turned out, the Japanese were thinking the way Nimitz’ subordinates were. Convinced that the Americans would not dare drive for the central headquarters, they had left Kwajalein relatively undefended while strongly fortifying the outer islands. These, however, presented no serious problem, for first the carriers then the planes from Kwajalein and the Gilberts kept them safely pounded down.
Let us now examine the reputations of a couple of officers on the tactical level. ON this level the most readily compared officers are Admiral Spruance and Admiral William F. Halsey, who alternated in command of the Central Pacific Force—known as Fifth Fleet when commanded by Spruance, and Third Fleet when commanded by Halsey. Short, readable biographies of both admirals have appeared, but neither book is in any sense definitive.
Admirals Spruance and Halsey have been likened to Admirals Jellicoe and Beatty, successive commanders of Britain’s Grand Fleet in World War I, and the comparison is apt. Spruance was remote, austere, methodical, and intellectual, and was little known to the public. Halsey was dashing, colorful, somewhat slapdash, salty of tongue, a popular hero. In battle, Spruance, like Jellicoe, twice turned away from the enemy and in the ensuing pursuit was never able to overtake him to inflict maximum damage. For this, Spruance was sharply criticized. In battle, Halsey, like Beatty, was tricked into pursuing a decoy fleet, for which he was sharply criticized.
Spruance’s remoteness was intentional, and his explanation is simple, yet profound. Said he: “Personal publicity in a war can be a drawback because it may affect a man’s thinking. A commander may not have sought it; it may have been forced upon him by zealous subordinates or imaginative war correspondents. Once started, however, it is hard to keep in check. In the early days of a war, when little about the various commanders is known to the public, and some general or admiral does a good and perhaps spectacular job, he gets a head start in publicity. Anything he does thereafter tends toward greater headline value than the same thing done by others, following the journalistic rule that ‘Nantes make news.’ Thus his reputation snowballs, and soon, probably against his will, he has become a colorful figure, credited with fabulous characteristics over and above the competence in war command for which he has been conditioning himself all his life.
“His fame may not have gone to his head, but there is nevertheless danger of this. Should he get to identifying himself with the figure as publicized, he may subconsciously start thinking in terms of what his reputation calls for, rather than of how best to meet the actual problem confronting him. A man’s judgment is best when he can forget himself and any reputation he may have acquired, and can concentrate wholly on making the right decision.”**
Spruance thus explained why he refused to grant interviews and generally avoided journalists, “not through ungraciousness, but rather to keep his thinking impersonal and realistic.”
Spruance was also explaining, no doubt consciously, what had happened to Admiral Halsey. For Halsey was very much a victim of his own publicity. In the dark early days of World War II, his carrier raids on Japanese bases, outrageously overrated by the press, made Halsey not only a national hero but, in the popular imagination, something of a superman. Halsey’s own bellicose statements, couched in salty language, delighted press and public and added to his bigger-than-life popular image. In newspapers he became “Bull Halsey,” nemesis of the Japanese.
When illness prevented Halsey from putting the capstone on his fame by commanding in the Battle of Midway, his determination to spectacularly sink the enemy was only increased. As he said to us not long afterward at the Naval Academy: “Missing the Battle of Midway was the greatest disappointment of my life—but I’ll sink those damned Jap carriers yet!” Under the circumstances, given Halsey’s impulsive nature, it would be asking too much to expect him not to go dashing off from Leyte Gulf when he learned that there were enemy carriers to the north. When it was revealed that these carriers were merely planeless bait, sent specifically to draw Halsey away from the Leyte beachhead, one of the newspaper writers who had helped to create the super-Halsey legend now made fun of his action as “the Battle of Bull’s Run.”
Postwar revelations vindicated Spruance’s two turnaways. In the Battle of Midway, had he not turned east in the evening of 4 June, he could hardly have avoided a night battle against greatly superior forces. In the Battle of the Philippine Sea, had he advanced and attacked the Japanese carriers in the morning of 19 June, no enemy force would have got between his fleet and the Saipan beachhead, as he feared. But the attack would have cost heavily in American planes, for the Japanese heavy surface ships were a hundred miles nearer than the Japanese big carriers. Our attacking planes would have passed going and coming through the intense antiaircraft fire of the surface vessels.
As it was, Spruance’s fleet, in assuming a defensive posture, shot down 430 attacking Japanese planes while sustaining very minor damage. At this late period in the war, stripping Japanese carriers of planes was practically the equivalent of sinking the carriers themselves, for Japan had neither time nor fuel to train replacement aviators. Thereafter, the only use the Japanese made of their planeless carriers was as bait to lure Admiral Halsey away from the Leyte Gulf beachhead the following October.
In short, in his second turnaway, Spruance did the right thing, for what we now see to have been the wrong reason. In any case, his reputation is secure. One cannot help wondering, however, what his reputation would be if postwar revelations had shown that he achieved nothing by his turnaways, only missed golden opportunities.
An important reason for his caution is that Spruance was what in military jargon we call a “capabilities man.” As Admiral Spruance himself explained: “At the Naval War College in our Estimate of the Situation form we used to have: ‘The enemy, his strength, disposition and probable intentions.’ Later, ‘probable intentions’ was changed to ‘capabilities.’ We found that there had been a tendency to decide what an enemy was going to do and lose sight of what he could do. I ha' seen just this happen in fleet problems at sea and it is very dangerous.”*** It goes without saying that a capabilities man with a vivid imagination can be paralyzed into a permanent defensive posture, but of course Spruce was much too intelligent to fall into that trap. “In making war,” he said, “we try to minimize rather than to avoid danger.”
Admiral Halsey was a “probabilities man,” that is, he tended to make up his mind what the enemy would probably do and acted accordingly. In this respect, as well as in his liking for publicity, Halsey was in the Nelsonian tradition. When the French Mediterranean Fleet escaped out of Toulon in 1798, Nelson assumed that it was going by direct route to Egypt and sped thither. Finding no enemy there, he dashed off to the north just before the French, who had come by an indirect route, arrived off Alexandria. In 1805, when the French Mediterranean Fleet again escaped from Toulon, Nelson again dashed off eastward. At length realizing his mistake, he sped to the West Indies, whereupon the French fleet headed for the English Channel, is original objective. If Nelson had not been dealing with an incompetent and demoralized enemy, incapable of seizing opportunities, and if his wild-goose chases had not been followed by spectacular victories, one wonders what his reputation would be today. It was Halsey’s misfortune to be dealing with a highly motivated, alert enemy.
Nelson’s impulsiveness, unlike Halsey’s, did not extended to day-by-day operations. Halsey’s whimsical, often slapdash, methods of operating were the despair of his subordinates. I have never met a commander who did not much prefer serving under the methodical Spruance. Admiral Dyer, who commanded the light cruiser Astoria under both Halsey and Spruance, expresses their attitude this way: “My feeling was one of confidence when Spruance was there and one of concern when Halsey was there . . . . When you moved into Admiral Spruance’s command from Admiral Halsey’s . . . you moved from an area in which you never knew what you were going to do in the next five minutes or how you were going to do it, because the printed instructions were never up to date. . . . He never did things the same way twice. When you moved into Admiral Spruance’s command, the printed instructions were up to date, and you did things in accordance with them.
“When you’ve got hundreds of ships under you, you’ve got to have some common ground to stand on, or when you’re charging around at 25 or 30 knots in one of these great big ships, what you’re going to do in the next two or three minutes is important, and what the other ships are going to do is important.”
But Admiral Halsey, despite his shortcomings, which were few compared to his virtues, was ever revered by the little men of his fleet and command. Always approachable, always solicitous, always daring, he operated not in the spirit of “Go!” but of “Let’s go!” He asked no man to face dangers that he would not face himself. He passed no bucks, he shirked no responsibilities. Always appreciative, he never left a command or ended a campaign without words of thanks or commendation. One remembers his opening words to his fleet on ending the Philippines campaign were: “I am so proud of you that no words can express my feelings.”
Perhaps Admiral Nimitz has left us the best brief description of his top fleet commanders: “Bill Halsey was a sailor’s admiral and Spruance, an admiral’s admiral.”
A graduate of the University of Richmond and of the University of Chicago, Professor Potter attained the rank of Commander, U. S. Naval Reserve, during World War II. Co-author of American Sea Power Since 1775, he is coauthor and editor of The United States and World Sea Power and (with Fleet Admiral Nimitz) Sea Power: A Naval History. He also edited The Great Sea War and Triumph in the Pacific. He is now Chairman of Naval History, U. S. Naval Academy. He first presented this article before the Second Annual Military History Symposium meeting Air Force Academy.
* See George C. Dyer, “Learn to Say No to the Admiral,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, July 1963, pp. 26–35.
** Emmett P. Forrestel, Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, USN: A Study in Command (Washington, 1966) p. 62.
*** Letter from R. A. Spruance to E. B. Potter, February 1959.