Fleet Admiral William F. Halsey Jr. lived up to his nickname, “Bull.” He was aggressive and reveled in giving profanity-laced quotes to the papers. The New York Times called him the “fighting Admiral.”1Time magazine dubbed him a “knuckle-swinger.”2 But he was not rash. He knew when and how to take risks and how to fight hard. Examining Halsey’s five-star leadership offers five key lessons all naval leaders should heed.
Lesson 1: Leaders Plan Ahead
After the devastating sucker punch on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, the United States suffered months of stinging defeats. The American people needed a win.
A daring plan was devised. For the first time in history, Army bombers would launch from Navy aircraft carriers and take the fight to the heart of enemy territory: Tokyo. It would not be easy. Designed for large runways, the B-25s were much larger and heavier than their smaller Navy cousins. To compensate for the extra heft, the carriers had to close to within 500 miles of Tokyo, turn into the wind, and only then launch the bombers. Ever since 1274 and 1281, when two monsoons destroyed attacking Mongol fleets, the Land of the Rising Sun believed it was invincible, protected by a divine wind—“kamikaze.” Bull Halsey would prove once and for all that American air power could defeat Imperial wind.
Things did not go as planned. On a Saturday in April 1942, a Japanese ship spotted the U.S. flattop USS Hornet (CV-8), ten hours and 170 miles from the launch point. Halsey had a choice to make. He could take the prudent option—return to base and reserve his forces to fight another day—or he could press on. Halsey’s motto was “Hit hard, hit fast, hit often.”3 He was not going to back down. Without hesitation, he ordered the spotter ship sunk, then he gave the order: “Launch planes. To Colonel Doolittle and Gallant command, good luck and God bless.”4
The claxon startled the Army aircrews; they thought they had hours more to prepare. The Navy aircraft handlers topside steadied themselves against the pitching deck, dodging puddles as they moved the planes into position. Pilots had to time the wave crests to ensure they could launch without plunging into the water. Doolittle made the first attempt. He revved his engines and just as the ship started its sea-saw trip up a wave, released his brakes and lunged toward the edge of the flight deck. He exhaled as he gained altitude and air speed before disappearing behind the low-hung clouds.
The Doolittle Raid had begun. Admiral Halsey understood that effective leaders know the difference between a calculated risk and jumping off half-cocked. They plan and calculate. They develop the ability to predict what Clausewitz called the critical moment. To an observer, it may look like a snap decision, but in reality, it is the opposite. They have honed their instinct to act based on years of study and preparation.
Weeks before the raid, Halsey summoned Doolittle to the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. They met in the crowded, smoke-filled bar to discuss contingencies. Halsey grew nervous, however, that Doolittle might be recognized, so the pair retired to Halsey’s room. There, they contemplated every eventuality, including what to do if they were spotted prior to the launch point. “It was agreed,” Doolittle recalled, that if the United States were discovered early, but within “range of Japan, we would go ahead and bomb our targets, fly out to sea, and hope, rather futilely,” to be rescued by a friendly submarine.5
Halsey was not afraid to take risks, but he understood the importance of proper planning. Planning is the key that unlocks successful risk-taking.
Lesson 2: Leaders Never Stop Learning
For the first three decades of his career, Halsey was an officer in the surface navy. He commanded several torpedo boats, destroyers, and Destroyer Division 3. Yet, in most pictures, he is proudly wearing the gold wings of a naval aviator.
After serving 28 years and achieving the rank of captain, Halsey was offered command of the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga (CV-3). By law, aviators had to command carriers, not surface navy officers, so Halsey had to attend an abbreviated class for air observers. Instead of the shorter, easier course, however, Halsey volunteered to complete all of flight school. He earned his wings at 52—the oldest person in Navy history. “I thought it better to be able to fly the aircraft,” he explained, “than to just sit back and be at the mercy of the pilot.”6
Warfare is constantly evolving. In an era of great power competition, learning on the fly is essential to victory. This is why Admiral John M. Richardson, former Chief of Naval Operations, focused on the “ability and agility of learning. Because the team that learns faster than the other is the team that wins.” Richardson concluded, “We basically just out learned our enemies in World War II.”7
Halsey provides an excellent example of how leaders should always push themselves to gain new skills and continue to study the art of war.
Lesson 3: Leaders Build Teams That Win Without Them
The Bull could not sleep at night. He had lost nearly 20 pounds. It was not the stress of constant combat. It was not the fear of certain calamity. No, it was a skin rash.
After the successful Doolittle Raids the admiral returned to Pearl Harbor. The wreckage from the “day of infamy” surprise attacks still littered the bay. By this point, the planning for the Battle of Midway was in the final, frenetic stages. Halsey—fresh from his string of victories—wanted to play a central role. The preceding several months, however, had taken a toll. He was losing weight and, to make matters worse, was stricken with a debilitating rash over most of his body. The itching was unbearable. It was impossible for him to sleep. Admiral Chester Nimitz, ordered him to take medical leave in San Francisco. The great Bull Halsey would not fight at what would become the major turning point in the battle for the Pacific.
Nimitz, commander of the entire Pacific, knew losing Halsey would be significant. The enemy nevertheless had a vote in the timing of battles, and the Japanese elected to attack Midway sooner than expected. It devastated Halsey to be benched for such a pivotal engagement. He would later say missing Midway was “the greatest disappointment of [his] career.”8
The United States was victorious at Midway, striking what military historian John Keegan called “the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare.”9
The lesson is clear: No one is indispensable. Leaders must ensure they are developing their junior personnel at all times, because one never knows when a key member of the team, perhaps even its leader, will be sidelined at a critical moment. “There aren’t any great men,” Halsey supposedly said. “There are just great challenges that ordinary men like you and me are forced by circumstances to meet.”10
Lesson 4: Leaders Endure Failure
Crippling failures besieged Halsey during the last year of the war. During the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Halsey’s Third Fleet was assigned to protect the flank of Seventh Fleet as it conducted amphibious landings in the Philippines. The Bull of the Pacific was spoiling for a fight. Rather than stay and look after the landing force, he wanted to destroy the remaining Japanese fleet. Perhaps the Bull was too aggressive. In a move that naval historian Samuel Morison called “Halsey’s blunder,” the admiral directed his fleet to leave position to chase what he believed was the main force of the Imperial Fleet. Instead, it was a small decoy force sent to bait him off station.
With Third Fleet out of position, the largest enemy fleet since the Battle of Midway was unopposed. When Admiral Nimitz realized Halsey had left, his ship sent the famous message, “Where is [Third Fleet]? The world wonders.”11 Halsey took this as a personal, public reprimand. He lost his temper, throwing his hat on the ground in an expletive-filled fit of rage. Such a public and consequential blunder may have crippled a lesser leader, but Halsey regained his composure, kept his head up, and learned to persevere.
Leyte Gulf would not be Halsey’s only misstep. Just two months after that debacle, Halsey faced an even bigger adversary. While he was conducting operations near the Philippines, the barometer started to drop, and the seas began to rise. A typhoon was developing. Halsey received conflicting forecasts. The meteorologists in Pearl Harbor thought the storm would pass safely to the north. Halsey’s own weather guessers, however, predicted a route straight toward his fleet. The prudent move would have been to clear the area. Instead, Halsey stayed and did not cancel routine activities until it was too late.
The sea’s wrath continued to grow. The planes patrolling over the fleet could not land on their carriers. Aviators had to ditch in the ocean, hoping to be recovered by the destroyers. The barometer continued to fall. At the peak of the storm, the mighty warships were being tossed like bathtub toys in 70-foot waves. Halsey’s fleet was battered with 83-knot winds gusting well above 100 knots. Charles Calhoun, a survivor from the USS Dewey (DD-349), recalls clumps of sailors singing the Navy hymn, trying in vain to drown out the din of mayhem. The destroyer USS Hull (DD-350) ricocheted between mountains of water, took a 90-degree roll, and capsized. “Halsey’s typhoon” resulted in the loss of nearly 800 souls.12
A court of inquiry found that Halsey had erred by remaining on station, but it did not recommend sanctions. Again, Halsey had to persevere.
The following June, the admiral would face Mother Nature again. Remarkably, Halsey sailed his fleet through a typhoon a second time. This time, six men washed overboard and the storm destroyed 76 planes, but all the ships made it through, despite heavy damage. A court of inquiry recommended the admiral be reassigned. Nimitz declined to accept the recommendation. Once again, Halsey had to persevere.
Learning to overcome setbacks and defeat is a vital part of leading. Failure will come to us all, but only those who overcome will persevere until the next victory. Toughness and grit are the characteristics that allow leaders to deal with setbacks—Halsey had plenty of both. Despite three major failures, Admiral Halsey was beloved by the American people and promoted to the rank of fleet admiral after the war.
Lesson 5: Leaders Know People Matter Most
Through all the battles, losses, and victories of the war in the Pacific, Halsey never lost sight of the fact that people are most important. There is an old legend about Admiral Halsey that best illustrates this point: At the end of the war, the Bull was hosting a victory rally on the steps of the L.A. County Courthouse. Afterward, he greeted a group of chief petty officers who had served with him during the war. As he greeted one chief in particular, Halsey paused, and the two exchanged a wink.
Later that evening, the legend continues, a civilian asked the admiral about the wink.
“That man was my chief when I was an ensign,” Halsey explained. “No one before or after taught me as much about ships or men as he did. You civilians don’t understand. You go down to Long Beach and you see those battleships sitting there, and you think that they float on water, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir, I guess I do,” the civilian answered.
“You’re wrong,” Halsey stated. “They are carried to sea on the backs of those chief petty officers.”13
1. Associated Press, “A Fighting Admiral Bids Farewell to His Fleet,” The New York Times, 23 November 1945, 1.
2. John Wukovits, “Dear Admiral Halsey,” Naval History 30, no. 2 (April 2016).
3. “Fleet Admiral Halsey Dies,” The New York Times, 17 August 1959, 1.
4. James H. Doolittle, I Could Never Be So Lucky Again (New York: Bantam Book, 1991), 254.
5. Doolittle, I Could Never Be So Lucky Again, 237.
6. Kennedy Hickman, “World War II: Fleet Admiral William Halsey Jr.,” ThoughtCo, 26 August 2020.
7. Richard R. Burgess, “Richardson Prepares Sailors to Out-Learn and Be Ready to Out-Fight Adversaries,” SeaPower, 28 March 2019.
8. James C. Bradford, Quarterdeck and Bridge: Two Centuries of American Naval Leaders (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997), 350.
9. John Keegan, The Second World War (New York: Penguin, 2006).
10. Attributed to Admiral William F. Halsey, U.S. Navy. Said by James Cagney, portraying Halsey, in the United Artists film version of Halsey’s life, The Gallant Hours (dialogue continuity, p. 38), 1960, Cagney-Montgomery Productions, Inc.
11. H. P. Willmott, The Battle of Leyte Gulf: The Last Fleet Action (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2005), 192–97.
12. Betsy Steinberg, Script: Wrath of God: Halsey’s Typhoons—Peril on the Sea, Turner Classic Movies, documentary (2000).
13. Hon. Kenneth J. Braithwaite, Secretary of the Navy, “Message to Chief Selects,” ALNAV, 20 November 2020.