After acquiring unprecedented power as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Ernest King challenged the Navy Department administration—and the President—by trying to extend his power even further.
On 12 March 1942, in a process that had begun three months earlier, Admiral Ernest J. King became the most powerful naval leader on earth.1
In the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, in recognition of his brilliant handling of the Atlantic Fleet before the United States entered World War II, 63-year-old King was appointed Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Fleet. Not yet within his control at that point were war plans, strategic direction, shore logistics, and training, which were the responsibilities of Admiral Harold R. Stark, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO).
Before accepting the appointment, King had presented several requests to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox. King asked to be based at the Navy Department in Washington, where the decisions would be made, not on board a ship as was customary for the fleet commander. Also, because the acronym for Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Fleet—CINCUS—sounded too much like “sink us,” King wanted it changed to COMINCH. These requests readily were granted, as was King’s desire to avoid press conferences and testifying before Congress except when absolutely necessary. Also, King was concerned about an overlap between his and Stark’s war-planning responsibilities. He was assured the problem would be addressed.
Then came King’s boldest request. Arguing that strategy and production needed to be coordinated by the same person, he wanted authority over the Navy Department bureaus through which materials and manpower were obtained, principally, the bureaus of Ships, Ordnance, Yards and Docks, Aeronautics, and Personnel. Roosevelt firmly refused. The bureaus had functioned separately from naval operations for more than a century, and any change would have required an act of Congress. The President much preferred the existing procedure, whereby each bureau needed to approach Congress for its funding, rather than give the entire responsibility to a single admiral. Instead, King was assured that any bureau chief who failed to cooperate would be replaced.
The executive order appointing King was, according to historian Thomas B. Buell, “one of the most remarkable documents of the Second World War.”2 By a stroke of the pen, King acquired powers that had never even been granted to the CNO, the senior naval position. In addition to obtaining supreme command over all operating forces, King was made directly subordinate to the President. His connection to the Secretary of the Navy was left vague, the order stating only that he was subject to the Secretary’s general direction. Comfortable leaving the running of the war to King, Knox had no problem making that connection so loose.
It soon became clear that King’s and Stark’s overlapping responsibilities made the arrangement unworkable. The problem was referred to Roosevelt, who decided in March 1942 to combine the COMINCH and CNO functions. Though Stark was a brilliant strategic thinker, he was not a fighter like King and remained under a cloud after the Pearl Harbor attack. Thus, while Stark departed to assume other duties in Europe, King was appointed COMINCH-CNO.
The executive order combining the two functions described the CNO’s responsibilities as the preparation, readiness, and logistical support of the operating forces. In that connection, he was charged with “coordination and direction of the bureaus and offices of the Navy Department.”3 The words “and direction,” inserted at the last minute and accepted by Roosevelt and Knox without full consideration of their implications, gave the CNO more control of the bureaus than any of his predecessors had been allowed. King’s connection with the Secretary of the Navy again was left vague, the order specifying only that he operate under the direction of the Secretary. For reasons that will be seen, Buell wrote, “Knox must not have realized, until it was too late, that the wording of that order imperiled his own authority.”4
King selected Vice Admiral Frederick J. Horne for the newly created post of Vice CNO. Before then a member of the General Board awaiting retirement after long and varied service, Horne would serve as King’s top supply officer through the war and after. Horne’s appointment came as a surprise to many, one historian observing: “King and Horne simply did not like one another. But, recognizing that Horne possessed an extraordinary talent for organization and for getting things done, King put aside his personal feelings.”5
Historian Samuel E. Morison noted, “King virtually delegated [to Horne] the responsibility for logistics planning, procurement and distribution.”6 Working in cooperation with the Army’s Services of Supply and key offices within the Navy Department, Horne “was able to see problems as a whole, to reconcile incongruities in the system, and to persuade discordant elements to work together harmoniously.”7 So completely did Horne perform these functions, King later estimated that only about 2 percent of his time was spent on CNO matters, with all else devoted to his duties as COMINCH and with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.8
Presiding over the Navy Department since 1940, Secretary Knox was a former Rough Rider, Bull Moose supporter of Theodore Roosevelt, and the Republican Party’s vice-presidential candidate in 1936. With war looming, and anxious to enlarge public support for his policies, Roosevelt persuaded Knox to enter his cabinet. To help shoulder the enlarged administrative load preparing the Navy for war, Wall Street executive James V. Forrestal was recruited for the newly created position of Under Secretary of the Navy.
Historian Maury Klein observed that when Knox and later Forrestal took office: “the navy had six bureaus but no central procurement authority . . . or any semblance of long-range production planning. Its contracting machinery was primitive and glacial . . . [they] would have to start from scratch, often butting heads with an entrenched officer corps.”9 Much effort also would be needed fending off the reorganization projects of King, about whom someone on his staff commented, “It was almost a disease with him to be working on reorganization.”10
Battle for the Bureaus—Phase I
When King was appointed, Roosevelt casually suggested that the Navy Department might be streamlined, which the admiral understood as an open invitation to reduce civilian authority and end the independence of the bureaus. Convinced that the bureaus were inefficient and would impede his war plans, King intended to bring them under his wing through a plan that would, according to Buell, “emasculate civilian authority.”11 He planned to organize, and place directly under CNO administration, four grand divisions: Material, Personnel, Readiness, and Operations. Among the sweeping changes planned, Knox would lose control over material procurement for the enormous shore establishment, including bases, schools, training centers, and shipyards.
Further, King would obtain control of the Office of Procurement and Material (OP&M) formed by Forrestal. Through its extensive activities, OP&M brought order to the bureau procurement process and achieved closer coordination with CNO forecasts for more reliable production planning. OP&M was considered a principal accomplishment by Forrestal who, according to Klein, “drove the revamping of the navy’s supply system even as he strengthened civilian control of the Navy Department.”12 Those achievements largely would be erased if King prevailed.
When shown King’s proposals, Roosevelt rejected them. It was not the streamlining he had in mind that would have reduced the chain of command. Roosevelt wrote to Knox, “I do not mean by [streamlining] that the whole administrative structure should be changed in the middle of the war.” After advising Knox that nothing would be gained by circulating King’s proposal for comment, Roosevelt continued:
We ought not to have all the administrative problems of personnel and material, shore establishments, production, etc. go up through the Chief of Naval Operations. When you come down to it, the real function of the [CNO] is primarily Naval Operations—no human being can take on all the other responsibilities of getting the Navy ready to fight. [The CNO] should know all about the state of readiness and direct the efforts of ships and men when they are ready to fight. . . . Details of getting ready to fight ought not to bother him.13
Undeterred, without informing Roosevelt or Knox, King issued reorganization orders to Horne, who promptly issued his own implementation orders. Only by chance did Forrestal, Knox, and finally Roosevelt learn what was happening. Informed by his naval aide, Roosevelt blew up, muttering: “Why didn’t he tell me? How does he know I’d approve? I don’t care if the whole Navy approved it.”14
Summoning Knox and King to the White House, Roosevelt ordered that King cancel every order connected with the reorganization and then wrote to Knox:
The more I think of the two orders which you and I saw, the more outrageous I think it is that [King] went ahead to do . . . what I had already disapproved . . . I am very much inclined to send for the Officers [i.e., King and Horne] and give them a dressing down. They are old enough to know better.15
In Buell’s view, “King failed to comprehend that wartime logistical support was incredibly complex, demanding the finest civilian industrial and managerial minds to make things work among conflicting priorities and shortages of resources.”16
Roosevelt told King that if any reorganization occurred, he and Knox would do it, and King would better devote his energies to sinking submarines. Reflecting on the situation a year later, King explained: “The need for [reorganization] was so obvious that I simply directed that it be put into effect. But I stumbled on one little pebble—I neglected to consult the President and the Secretary first.”17
Battle for the Bureaus—Phase II
Not one to accept defeat, King waited a year and tried again, this time informing Roosevelt and Knox of his intentions. In May 1943, King laid out a new reorganization proposal, once more involving four grand divisions and providing for his direct control of the bureaus. Had he succeeded, King would have provided the Navy a powerful general staff much like the Army’s.18
King claimed the plan “met with practically unanimous approval from everyone except the bureau chiefs,” which is highly questionable.19 Speaking for the bureau chiefs, who recoiled at the assault on their independence, Rear Admiral William H. P. Blandy, Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance, wrote to Knox:
[King] must have and does have military control over the bureaus. Military control involves issuing directives regarding what is wanted, when and where. The how including all business and industrial matters, is left to the bureaus, under the direct supervision of the Secretary, the Under Secretary and the Assistant Secretaries.
Blandy observed that, under the proposed reorganization, “these secretaries would lose direct administrative contact with the bureaus, which would still have to do the greater part of their own internal policy-making and planning.”20 Not surprisingly, Roosevelt rejected the plan, dismissing it as “complex and difficult to understand.”21
Summing up King’s successive proposals and their rejection by Roosevelt, historian Eric Larrabee wrote:
The civilian side of the Navy Department was something the President . . . knew a great deal about, [including] that its problems were not to be solved by turning them over to admirals. There was no evidence that this was a field in which King had any special competence. King was right in realizing that industrial procurement had become too complex for the creaky prewar machinery of the bureaus to cope with, but wrong in imagining . . . that Roosevelt would allow him to replace that machinery with himself.22
Attack and Counterattack
When King persisted with his reorganization projects, a decision was made to dilute his authority. Though it is uncertain where the idea originated, King suspected Forrestal.23 As Horne was CNO in all but name, Knox proposed to King in August 1943 during the Quebec Conference that Horne become CNO while King concentrated on his COMINCH duties. King rejected the idea, believing that Horne was involved in the plot and remarking later: “Of course Horne would have liked to have been Chief of Naval Operations. Who wouldn’t? . . . The trouble was that he wanted to run with the hares and the hounds too.”24
At Forrestal’s request, Horne drafted an executive order canceling King’s appointment as CNO and renaming him Admiral of the Navy and Commander, United States Fleet. The change in title was done partly to satisfy Roosevelt, who disliked having anyone else called “commander-in-chief.” The CNO position would be eliminated, with Horne, independent of King and under the Secretary of the Navy, appointed Chief of Naval Logistics and Material. Under this plan, King would retain his four stars and Horne would gain a fourth star.
Admiral William D. Leahy, Roosevelt’s chief of staff, always believed that King’s two positions should be separate, and his influence was important in gaining the President’s support for the change. But the process moved slowly as King and his allies offered alternatives aimed at leaving his power intact, including ideas from the rejected reorganization plans. In frustration, Knox wrote to King:
After reading [the counterproposals] I am oppressed by the fact that evidently I cannot get across to anyone what I want and what the President and I have agreed should be done. . . . It is not contemplated that either you or the Chief of Naval Logistics will take over entire management and control of the Navy Department. That will remain as hitherto, just where it is now—in the hands of the Secretary of the Navy.25
But King was not prepared to surrender any part of his authority and his prestigious CNO title. In a highly effective counterattack, King persuaded Representative Carl Vinson, chairman of the powerful House Naval Affairs Committee, to withdraw his earlier support for the reorganization. Before the matter was resolved, in April 1944, Knox died suddenly. When Roosevelt chose Forrestal as his successor, someone remarked, “The appointment will please everyone,” to which the President reportedly responded, “No, everyone but one . . . Ernie King.”26
A New Regime
Stepping into Knox’s shoes, Forrestal might have been expected to follow through on the plan to strip King of his CNO authority. Surprisingly, however, Forrestal let the plan die. As Robert Albion and Robert Connery explained in their study of Forrestal at the Navy Department: “[Forrestal’s] decision was doubtless influenced by his innate aversion to allowing friction to build up when it might do more harm than the objective warranted. Also, the Navy’s activity was at a feverish pitch . . . and tampering with King’s dual role might seriously jeopardize vital cooperation.” When Horne asked why the plan was dropped, Forrestal explained that King was being unusually cooperative and he didn’t want to “spoil the honeymoon.”27
King, however, attributed victory to his own prowess, claiming: “Forrestal believed . . . that I had too much power myself. He hated like hell that I had both jobs. But I was too strong for him to make any change.”28
Though King and Forrestal disliked each other from the start, their contact was limited when Knox was Navy Secretary. Increased exposure strengthened their antipathy, based in part on their very different approaches to problem solving. As described by Albion and Connery: “Forrestal’s approach was more intellectual and less direct, intensely irritating to King, who was entirely down-to-earth and practical. . . . He either accepted or rejected a proposition and for him that ended the matter.”29 King read Forrestal’s studied manner as deviousness, saying, “Forrestal was as tricky as he could be.”30 In later years, each would say of the other, “I hated his guts.”31
Even if Forrestal’s personality had been different, it is doubtful King would have been more accepting. Resenting civilian interference, King made it clear that his offices, on the third deck of the Navy Department building, were Navy territory where Navy Department personnel on the floor below were unwelcome. This isolation was carried to the point where it hampered operations. According to Buell: “influenced by King’s penchant for secrecy, his COMINCH operational planners were reluctant to disclose future plans to Horne’s procurement planners. The civilians were even less informed, even though Knox, Forrestal, and their principal assistants had to buy what King would need.”32 This was far different from Army General George C. Marshall’s collaborative, “open-door” relationship with Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson at the War Department.
King retained his combined rank until war’s end, gaining a personal victory in September 1944 by effectively demoting Horne, whom he considered disloyal. He accomplished it by elevating his COMINCH chief of staff, Vice Admiral Richard S. Edwards, to the newly created position of Deputy COMINCH–Deputy CNO and inserting Edwards between himself and Horne. Avoiding the appearance of a demotion for Horne, the press release indicated it was done to obtain a better division of labor. More truthfully, King later claimed, “I eased him out, finally.”33 Nevertheless, Horne obtained his coveted fourth star.
As the result of a detailed study completed at war’s end shortly before King’s retirement, his responsibilities were combined in a redefined Chief of Naval Operations position. A key change was the relationship of the CNO to the Secretary of the Navy. The executive order specified that the CNO was responsible to the President and to the Secretary of the Navy.34 Full civilian authority was restored.
1. Jonathan W. Jordan, American Warlords: How Roosevelt’s High Command Led America to Victory in World War II (New York: NAL Caliber, 2015), 191.
2. Thomas B. Buell, Master of Sea Power: A Biography of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King (Boston: Little, Brown, 1980), 140.
3. Ibid, 162.
4. Ibid, 219.
5. Stephen Howarth, ed., Men of War: Great Naval Leaders of World War II (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), 78.
6. Samuel Eliot Morison, Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls June 1942–April 1944, vol. 7, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II (Boston: Little, Brown, 1951), 101.
7. Ibid.
8. Robert Greenhalgh Albion and Robert Howe Connery, Forrestal and the Navy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), 91.
9. Maury Klein, A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2013), 61.
10. Albion and Connery, Forrestal, 92.
11. Buell, Master of Sea Power, 219.
12. Klein, Call to Arms, 311.
13. Albion and Connery, Forrestal, 98.
14. Ibid., 100.
15. Ibid., 101.
16. Buell, Master of Sea Power, 218.
17. Albion and Connery, Forrestal, 101.
18. Ibid., 232.
19. Ernest J. King and Walter Muir Whitehill, Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record (New York: W. W. Norton, 1952), 477; Albion and Connery, Forrestal, 102.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Eric Larrabee, Commander in Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, his Lieutenants, and their War (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), 195.
23. Albion and Connery, Forrestal, 125.
24. Buell, Master of Sea Power, 222.
25. Albion and Connery, Forrestal, 126–27.
26. Ibid., 13.
27. Ibid, 233.
28. Buell, Master of Sea Power, 222.
29. Albion and Connery, Forrestal, 92–93.
30. Jordan, Warlords, 339.
31. Ibid, 472.
32. Buell, Master of Sea Power, 384.
33. Ibid, 223.
34. Executive Order 9635, 29 September 1945.