During the Korean War, it was my good fortune to command Task Force 77 in the Japan Sea in the fall of 1951. Our Fleet Commander was Vice Admiral Harold M. “Beauty” Martin. One day the two of us began reminiscing about the Navy “Sundowners” (characters), we had known. We mentioned one after another until we had covered all those we could remember.
Suddenly, we looked at each other and exclaimed in unison: “We are the Sundowners now!”
Quite a few naval officers were called "Sundowners” in my time, and not always was it a term of opprobium. Sometimes it was in admiration, and even a term of endearment.
At the head of my personal list of Sundowners stands one Ernest J. "Jesus" King, head of the Navy in World War II. King was so tough, it was said, that he shaved with a blow torch. In fact, during the war, as a compliment, somebody did present him with a gold-plated blow torch.
My first association with him occurred in the late 1920s, when he relieved Captain E. S. “Jerry” Land as assistant Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics under Admiral W. A. Moffett. I was Admiral Moffett's personal pilot, and, while Admiral Moffett was away for a lengthy stay at a London Disarmament Conference, Captain King was acting Chief of the Bureau. Together with Rear Admiral R. H. “Reddy” Leigh, the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, then charged with handling personnel, King made a decision to send Lieutenant Alford I. “Al” Williams to sea. Al had been a World War I Naval Reserve aviator and had become the Navy's leading stunt pilot. As such, he had become a celebrity and a valuable drawing card. Admiral Moffet had used Al to further the interests of naval aviation in the public eye, and he was in high favor with Moffett.
When faced with sea duty, however, Al submitted his resignation in anger. Admiral Moffett returned soon afterwards and expressed to all his great disappointment. In fact, he said Al had let him down. But Al was the only one Moffett was mad at. He told me, “There cannot be two Chiefs of the Bureau. Since I happen to be the Chief, King has to go.”
Thus, King, himself, went off to sea!
My next brush with King came when he commanded the Lexington (CV-2). When he took command from Captain Frank D. Berrien, his predecessor made a lengthy speech, praising the crew and asking them to give the new captain the same loyal and devoted support they had given him. Then he read his orders of detachment. King stepped up, read his orders, and characteristically brusque, he declared: "Different skippers, different long splices. Carry on!”
He proceeded to rule the ship with an iron hand. He personnally wrote the orders to each flight leader before each mission.
King was a tall, thin man with tremendous stamina and a volcanic temper. One day I saw him get so angry that he threw his brand new white uniform cap on the deck and stomped on it. But, always he was eminently fair. He was a perfectionist with an amazing capacity for detail.
I was assigned to command squadron VF-2, stationed on board the Lexington, and since that squadron maintained a fine record, I never ran completely afoul of Ernie King, but on one occasion I came very close to it. The Lexington was maneuvering off Los Angeles and my squadron, as well as others, sent four planes to San Diego for overhaul. When the replacement planes returned, I was standing on the flight deck watching my planes land, when the Captain’s orderly said: “The captain wants you on the bridge.”
When I reported, Captain King grabbed me by the arm, rushed me over to the side, and exclaimed: “Look at that flight deck! There are supposed to be 400 men on that flight deck! Where are they?!!”
Obviously, the full flight deck crew was not needed to land just a few planes, so the ship’s air officer, out of consideration for the men, had only half of the flight deck personnel. Still, I believed that my trusted chief petty officer, J. C. Mettee, would have all my men there. I answered, “Captain, I’ll bet you 50 dollars my men are present!”
About then, two other squadron commanders came on the bridge and King tore into them. Hurrying down to the flight deck, I was quickly reassured by Chief Mettee that all my men were on their stations. I rushed back up to the bridge to find King still lambasting the other two.
I broke right in with, “Captain, my men are present!”
King replied: “That’s fine,” and continued to rail at the others.
When King finally learned that the air officer had ordered only half the crew to the flight deck, he put the air officer, Lieutenant Commander Bill Masek, in hack, suspending him from duty for ten days. This incident, unfortunately, marked the beginning of the end of Masek’s naval career.
This episode taught me two lessons about Ernie King—first, to steer clear of him, unless I knew I was dead right. Second, he did not want any “yes men” around him, but, if you were in the right, he wanted you to argue in defense of your position. The Lexington and the Saratoga were often pitted against each other in tactical war games, and I observed that whenever Ernie King participated he would make certain that his side always won. It was said that he would even modify the rules to achieve victory. In the 1932 games, he simulated sinking the Saratoga twice, just to make certain that the umpires could not rebuild her overnight and use her again. King’s bold use of the Lexington contributed to the development of Fleet use of carrier aviation and gave him practical knowledge that served him well in wartime. Although many naval tacticians were not yet ready to admit it, these war games demonstrated the complete helplessness of the battleship against well-executed carrier aircraft attacks. The days of the battleship were numbered.
When the Navy’s new dirigible Akron encountered a severe storm off the New Jersey coast during the night of 4 April 1933 and crashed at sea, among the lives lost was the father of naval aviation, Rear Admiral William A. Moffett. Ernie King, then a rear admiral and next in seniority in naval aviation, took Moffett’s place. Characteristically, he proceeded to run naval aviation as though King were both his name and his title.
My duty assignment shortly after King took over was as the aeronautical member of the Board of Inspection and Survey. We had to evaluate the Navy’s aircraft to determine the suitability for the purpose intended. I was not directly under King, but I had many dealings with him.
On one occasion, in the spring of 1935, I had to test a plane in San Diego, the XP3D-1, a twin engine flying boat, and I needed some experienced flight officers to assist me. The President of the Board of Inspection and Survey, Rear Admiral George C. Day, at my instigation, requested three officers who were experienced flight test officers, but the answer came back from the Commander Aircraft, Battle Force, that these officers were not available, and three others, totally inexperienced in flight testing, were given to me.
Being only a lieutenant commander, I went to Admiral King with my problem. He asked “Whom do you want?”
“I want the officers I asked for in the first place, but . . .”
“All right,” he said, “Let me handle it. I’ll have the Bureau of Navigation order them to you.”
This approach to the problem worried me. I replied, “They are not going to like this on the West Coast. Those people will be furious with me.”
King’s sharp eyes twinkled. “To hell with what they think. You’ll get the men you want!”
King did have the three qualified men assigned to me and, as I feared, I incurred the wrath of Vice Admiral Henry V. “Benjie” Butler. I found that an irate vice admiral is not one to be trifled with, but I was able to placate him by resorting to the kind of diplomacy that has never been my long suit.
Another plane I tested was the XP3Y-1, which was in competition with the XP3D-1. The former won the competition and became the PBY Catalina, later famous for its patrol work in World War II.
I knew that this plane, the XP3Y-1, could establish a long distance seaplane record and, at the same time, demonstrate its long range service capability, and Ernie King was delighted when I presented my idea to him. He assigned the flight to me, authorizing me to make all arrangements and to be the pilot.
The flight desk officer at the Bureau of Aeronautics for the plane was Commander Paul E. Piehl, who had helped design it and who had supervised the modifications to make the flight possible. I chose him as my co-pilot, and we planned a flight to Panama and then a long distance flight from there up the West Coast, as far as the plane’s gas capacity would permit. Piehl and I made very careful preparations and, as all was in readiness, I took a few hours off on a Saturday afternoon to see a football game in Annapolis.
As luck would have it, Ernie King chose that Saturday to get in his monthly four hours flight time to fly to Norfolk, where he could check on the progress of the XP3Y-1. The fact that I was absent and not working around the clock made him furious. When he returned to Washington, he ordered Piehl off the flight, knowing that it would rile me. As soon as I saw King’s order, I went to his office to confront him.
“Sir, I think Piehl has earned the right to be on this flight.”
His eyes darkened. “Is that your recommendation?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
About 15 minutes after I left, Commander Marc A. Mitscher informed me the flight had been taken away from me and given to Lieutenant Commander Kreffler McGinnis.
On 14 October, McGinnis began the flight from Norfolk to Panama, then to San Francisco, setting a world’s record in the XP3Y. Had Ernie King been found strangled with a bungee cord, I would have been a prime suspect.
As the fleet exercise began early in 1937, the Lexington was sent to the Navy yard for overhaul and her squadrons were shore-based at San Diego. My job was “carrier representative,” the forerunner of air group commander. Since I was the senior aviator, all shore-based squadrons were grouped under me. Rear Admiral Ernie King, then Commander, Base Force, was assigned to defend San Diego against a simulated air attack by Saratoga and Ranger aircraft, under Vice Admiral F. J. Horne, Commander Aircraft Battle Force. I was temporarily assigned to King’s staff to help repel the attack with my shore-based planes.
The Friday afternoon before the exercise was to begin, I reported on board King’s flagship, the sea-plane tender Wright (AV-1). I was supposed to report directly to Admiral King, but first I visited with a life-long friend and a superb officer, Lieutenant Commander John Dale Price.
As Price and I were talking, King stormed in with a piece of paper crumpled in his fist and swore, “God damn you, Price, I told you not to do this.” King was the only naval officer I ever knew who would actually curse his subordinates. (Actually, he had a high regard for Price, but this was his way of emphasizing what he wanted.)
I was still smarting from the treatment he had given me on the XP3Y long distance flight, so, when he started swearing, I got up and left the room. I went below to my stateroom and never did report in person to King. Price and I stayed up most of the night preparing the defense of San Diego, but I stayed away from Admiral King.
Under King were the consolidated P2Y patrol planes or flying boats, and we stationed them over Admiral Horne’s carriers and pinpointed their positions. During the night, a heavy fog blanketed the sea area off San Diego, but the patrol planes were able to see the carriers through this fog during the night. At dawn, San Diego enjoyed clear skies, but the fog bank blanketed the carriers and prevented all carrier planes from taking off. Admiral Horne was frustrated.
His situation demonstrated the need for all-weather carrier aircraft. From daylight on, we launched heavy bombing attacks with our shore-based airplanes and “sank” the Saratoga and Ranger before 10 o’clock, which was the end of the problem.
But canny King, who was calling the shots—his own and others—kept the attack going until noon. As usual, he covered himself with glory as the undisputed winner of the exercise. Not one word passed between him and me until the end, when he called me in to say “Well done.” That night, as was the custom, all naval aviators gathered for the usual Saturday dinner dance at the Coronado Hotel. King was at a table some distance from mine. King sent one of his squadron commanders over to my table to ask me to have a drink with him. I told the squadron commander to “tell E. J. King to stay on his side and I will stay on my side, and everything will be all right.”
I have often wondered whether that squadron commander delivered my message in precisely the words and tone in which I sent it.
King went on to become Commander, Aircraft Battle Force, relieving Admiral Horne with the rank of vice admiral. Ultimately, he reverted to rear admiral to become a member of the General Board. Thereupon, a sigh of relief went up among naval aviators, including myself, because the General Board, an advisory group to the Secretary of the Navy, was usually the end of the road for admirals before retirement.
In the fall of 1940, when I was executive officer at the Naval Air Station, Jacksonville, Florida, the Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, landed at the air field to inspect the station. After he was greeted, out came Rear Admiral E. J. King. At once I sensed that he was not through by a long shot. Indeed, unknown to me, he had already been appointed to command the Patrol Force, again as a vice admiral. In February 1941, he was promoted to admiral, to command the Atlantic Fleet. Because of the ever increasing possibility of the United States being drawn into war in Europe, the Atlantic Fleet was augmented by the transfer of ships from the Pacific Fleet.
One such ship was the Yorktown (CV-5). In May 1941, I became her executive officer and soon I learned that the ship was very easygoing and, in some instances, that the officers were lackadaisical. One day, soon after my arrival, an order was promulgated throughout the Atlantic Fleet that reflected the iron fist of E. J. King. It required the crews of all ships to indulge in calisthenics or physical exercise for a quarter of an hour after morning quarters for muster, before commencing the day’s work. This was called “spuds drill” or “monkey drill.” Having been a holdover from the sailing ship days of the Navy, it had fallen into disuse.
Immediately, a wail went up among the ship’s officers about the physical exercise order. The heads of departments griped and grumbled; one took stock of the increasingly belligerent outlook in the Pacific. He said: “We’ll be back there pretty soon and we won’t have to put up with this foolishness.”
“I don’t know about that,” I told them, “unless I miss my guess, you’ll be under Ernie King for a long time.” Of course, I did not suspect that in six months King would be Chief of Naval Operations and everybody would be “under Ernie King.”
On 7 December, the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor. The one ray of sunshine in the otherwise dark picture was that none of our aircraft carriers was in port at the time.
Early in 1942, Admiral E. J. King was appointed Chief of Naval Operations. He was given the added title of Commander-in-Chief, U. S. Fleet. He chose for himself the short title “ComlnCh.” He wanted there to be no doubt about who was running the Navy.
I had to concede that Ernie King was the best choice the Navy had at the time. No one else could match his background. He had been in submarines, and had been instrumental in raising the S-4 and S-51, and no senior officer in the Navy could approach his experience in naval aviation.
He picked up the pieces of our shattered Navy after Pearl Harbor and began planning a program which eventually found our Navy fighting effectively on the seven seas.
The war in Europe held high priority, of course, but he was able to spread the Navy to the best advantage, giving as much as he could to MacArthur and Nimitz in the Pacific.
Early in February 1942, my ship, the Yorktown (CV-5), participated in the Marshall-Gilbert islands raid with Admiral Halsey, the first important U. S. raid against a Japanese-held island in the Pacific. On our return to Pearl Harbor shortly afterwards, I was promoted to Captain and was sent to Washington to await a new ship. I reported to Admiral King immediately to relate the details of the Marshall-Gilbert raid and recommended to him that we needed 150 aircraft carriers to win the war in the Pacific. I picked the figure out of thin air. He agreed with me and sent me around the country on a speaking program to propound my views. As it turned out, my figure was not far out of line. We actually had 119 aircraft carriers in commission when World War II ended.
During the summer of 1942, I was ordered to Newport News, Virginia, to fit out and command a converted oil tanker-aircraft carrier, Suwannee (CVE-27). On a visit to my friend, Captain Donald B. Duncan, on Admiral King’s staff, I learned that there was to be a “party,” but that I wasn’t invited. When I asked why, I was told that my ship would not be ready in time. The party turned out to be the TORCH operation scheduled for early November 1942, the initial offensive in the Atlantic, the landings on the North Coast of Africa. I figured that if my ship could be ready two weeks early, I could just make it. I told my friend Duncan, “Maybe I will be ready.”
Upon my return to the Newport News shipyard, I said to my friends, Douglas Petty and A. S. Butterworth, who, as a part of the management of Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company were directly charged with the conversion of my ship: “If you fellows will give me my ship two weeks early, I’ll put her where she will do some good.”
They answered, “Brother, that’s the kind of talk we like to hear. We want to win this war, too!”
I kept Duncan informed of my progress and he told me that Admiral King was very much interested in my endeavor.
Almost never does a ship get in commission ahead of schedule, but we did it. We joined the convoy of 150 ships to assist the invasion of Vichy French Morocco at Casablanca. My aviators bombed the Jean Bart, the French battleship in the harbor. They also destroyed French airplanes on the ground at Port Lyautey. We did not know it at the time, but after the war we learned that we had sunk three French submarines in the harbor. We found a submarine off the coast under a fog bank and our planes sank it with depth charges. We thought it was German, but it turned out to be French.
Upon my return to Norfolk, orders awaited me to report in person to the Chief of Naval Operations. When I related my actions in the TORCH Operation, Admiral King said to me: “You did a good job.”
I took this to be high praise since he had only one yardstick for merit—the winning of the war.
My ship, the Suwannee, was ordered to the South Pacific and shortly after arrival there in early 1943, I was ordered to fit out and command the new USS Yorktown (CV-10). This ship was the replacement for the earlier Yorktown, sunk at the battle of Midway. I learned that Admiral King had personally given me this assignment.
The Yorktown turned in a good score in the Pacific and my friends, Admirals John H. “Jack” Towers and Forrest Sherman, said they wanted to keep me in the Pacific after my promotion to rear admiral, but when my proposed duty assignment arrived on the desk of Admiral King, it was to shore duty at Quonset Point, Rhode Island. It was normal for a new rear admiral to be assigned to shore duty for his first new billet in order to organize his staff and get some experience in his new rank before being given a sea job. I learned much later that when the recommendation reached King, he simply indicated with an arrow and his initial “K” that I was to remain at sea in Task Force 58.
I placed my flag in the Hornet (CV-12) and had a successful period under Admiral Marc A. Mitscher in Task Force 58, which included the Hollandia campaign, the second strike on Truk, and the Marianas Campaign. As I had been at sea for over three years, Admiral Mitscher arranged for me to take leave. I happened to be in Admiral King’s office on the morning of 25 October 1944, while the battle of Leyte Gulf was in progress. King was pacing the floor in a towering rage. He vented his ire on Admiral Halsey because Halsey had taken his battleships away from the San Bernardino Straits, leaving the way open for the Japanese Central Force under Admiral Kurita to strike the transports at Leyte Gulf. Instantly I realized I was being privileged to have a ringside seat to history in the making. Many times I had seen King angry but this topped everything I had seen before. He told me that Admiral Oldendorf’s old battleships were low in ammunition and that they were pursuing Japanese Admiral Nishimura’s damaged ships westward in the Strait of Surigao. This situation presented the Japanese Central Force, which included the giant battleship Yamato, a golden opportunity to wreak havoc with General MacArthur’s transports in Leyte Harbor.
Just as I was on the point of leaving, a dispatch was brought to King, saying that Admiral Kurita had withdrawn his Central Force into the San Bernardino Strait. This lessened the tension, but Halsey had made a near fatal mistake of leaving the gate open at San Bernadino [sic] Straits to chase Japanese aircraft carriers with his battleships, thus missing the last golden chance in history for a modern battleship confrontation. Pearl Harbor was the first toll of the death knell for the battleship as the capital ship of the world’s navies. Had Halsey sunk the Japanese Central Force with his battleships of Task Force 34, a new lease on life might have been earned for the battleship.
Admiral King was reputed to have said: “When they get into a war, they send for the sons of bitches.” He later denied saying it, but said he wished he had said it.
Although I had disagreed with Admiral King many times earlier in our association, I came to admire him greatly. He stands beside General George C. Marshall and General H. H. “Hap” Arnold as one of the three great architects of victory in World War II.
In my opinion, Admiral Ernest Joseph King was a “Sundowner” par excellence, and I use the term in admiration. It takes fortitude and a “win” psychology to win in war, and King was the “Maestro.” Martinet, yes, but the right kind. He got the job done.
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Upon graduation from the U. S. Naval Academy with the Class of 1917, Admiral Clark went on board the USS North Carolina for service in World War I. He then served in destroyers in the Near East and taught navigation at the Naval Academy for a year. He was then assigned to naval aviation, graduating from the Flight School in 1925. He held various aviation posts on the West Coast alternating with tours of duty in Washington, D.C. In World War II, he commanded the USS Suwannee (CVE-27) and the Yorktown (CV-10). Promoted to rear admiral in February 1944, he served as a Task Group Commander in Task Force 58. He commanded Task Force 77 and the Seventh Fleet during the Korean War. Since his retirement in 1953, he has written two books: Carrier Admiral and Sea Power and Its Meaning.