Admiral Halsey Quotes

TF-16 returned to Pearl Harbor on May 26 in good order, with one huge exception: Admiral Halsey, the sixty-year-old commander, arrived back completely exhausted and ill. After six months of intense underway operations, culminating in the fruitless 7000-mile mission across the Pacific to the Coral Sea and back, Halsey had lost twenty pounds and had contracted a serious case of dermatitis. Nimitz took one look at him and sent him straight to the Pearl Harbor hospital. The Navy’s most experienced and highly regarded carrier force commander would sit out the Battle of Midway. The ultimate sea warrior, Halsey would watch from his hospital window as the two task forces departed Pearl Harbor for Midway.

There are no extraordinary men...just extraordinary circumstances that ordinary men are forced to deal with.

Leadership,” said Nimitz, “consists of picking good men and helping them do their best for you. The attributes of loyalty, discipline and devotion to duty on the part of subordinates must be matched by patience, tolerance and understanding on the part of superiors.”24

Chester and Catherine had begun a lifelong ritual of writing each other daily letters whenever they were apart.

No fighter ever won his fight by covering up—by merely fending off the other fellow’s blows. The winner hits and keeps on hitting even though he has to take some stiff blows in order to be able to keep on hitting. —ADMIRAL ERNEST J. KING, Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, 1942

With a combination of nimble counsel, exasperating ego, studied patience, and street-fighter tactics, William D. Leahy, Ernest J. King, Chester W. Nimitz, and William F. Halsey, Jr., built the modern United States Navy and won World War II on the seas. Each

Use your common sense." "Now that's the best damn order I ever had.

General Douglas MacArthur was the most brilliant, most important, and most valuable military leader in American history—at least that’s what Douglas MacArthur thought. When

Other men would get to command the spear point; Nimitz would calmly and diligently manage the arm that held the spear.

In all, Yamamoto deployed 162 ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, practically its entire fighting force, in support of the Midway operation. (No

I told the officer, “If you ever make another report like that, sir, I’ll throw you over the side!

Japanese had reported sinking her so many times that she had acquired an additional sobriquet, “the Galloping Ghost of the Oahu Coast.

It was rich, rewarding, beautiful slaughter.

This is Blackjack himself,” I said. “Your work so far has been superb. I expect even more. Keep the bastards dying!

On one foggy, misty night, King ordered the air groups from the Lexington and Saratoga to launch simultaneously well after sunset. The chaos was predictable but, in King’s mind, instructional.

Jesus Christ and General Jackson, this is the hottest potato they’ve ever handed me!” - Admiral “Bull” Halsey upon receiving instructions to take the Pacific Fleet and defend Guadalcanal at all costs.

[Admiral] Halsey was jubilant. Of the Princess-Saratoga strike, he wrote: 'I sincerely expected both air groups to be cut to pieces, and both carriers stricken if not lost. (I tried hard not to remember that my son Bill was aboard one of them.)

The ultimate test of any military commander, however, is that he rises or falls with whatever glories or misfortunes befall his command. Sometimes he is responsible, sometimes he is not, but as the commander he is always accountable nonetheless. Had

Midway wasn’t much of a place. Two tiny islands, crisscrossed by airstrips, totaled barely fifteen hundred acres on the edge of a lagoon circled by a jagged reef. But in May 1942, Midway may have been the most heavily defended acreage in the Pacific. Certainly,

As always, King was the ultimate authority, the one and only arbiter. One night when the communications watch officer groped his way across the darkened flag bridge, he bumped into an unrecognized figure. “Sir, are you on duty?” he queried. “Young man,” came the response, “this is the Admiral. I am always on duty.

Then Nimitz, being Nimitz, posted the usual watches and did the only thing that made sense to him. “On that black night somewhere in the Philippines,” he later recalled, “the advice of my grandfather returned to me: ‘Don’t worry about things over which you have no control.’ So I set up a cot on deck and went to sleep.

Nothing could ever replace the treasure of America’s men and women killed or forever maimed by Japan’s attack, but Nimitz looked around Pearl Harbor and decided that it could have been much worse. On the list of physical casualties, there were three glaring omissions that would prove to be major strategic blunders on the part of the Japanese.

Roosevelt’s election was particularly pleasing to Leahy because he believed “from personal knowledge of the man that he will use his office more directly for the benefit of the United States…. The Country and the Navy undoubtedly face a bad period, but I believe their policies will now be directed by a man whose point of view is wholly American.

Leahy wholeheartedly supported the airlift and Truman’s election, but he remained skeptical of the politics of the Middle East. “The President’s announcement [recognizing Israel],” Leahy wrote, “made with inadequate consideration leaves many questions unanswered” and could, he concluded, “drag the United States into a war between the two religious groups.”10

But perhaps the greatest asset was the surviving oil tanks. Had 4.5 million barrels of fuel oil been blown up, what was left of the Pacific Fleet would have been forced to limp back to the West Coast and have its operations in the Pacific severely curtailed. That action, not Japan’s sinking of a few aging battleships, would have given Japan the free rein it sought in the South Pacific.

As Halsey looked over his shoulder from his campaigns across the Pacific, “the old battlefields were already disappearing into the jungle or under neat, new buildings. Where 500 men had lost their lives in a night attack a few months before, eighteen men were now playing baseball. Where a Jap pillbox had crouched, a movie projector stood. Where a hand grenade had wiped out a foxhole, a storekeeper was serving cokes. Only the cemeteries were left.”20

visit. Chapter 19 Conferring with Admiral Halsey’s Staff as to the Third Fleet’s requirements for the scheduled July strikes and bombardments of the Empire, I found that news of our mine-detecting ability had given them ideas. They wanted submarines

Between 1941 and 1945, maps of Pacific typhoon lanes may as well have been marked “Here Be Dragons.

Once you find that idea, start moving forward and act decisively. U.S. admiral William Halsey observed, “All problems become smaller if you don’t dodge them, but confront them. Touch a thistle timidly, and it pricks you; grasp it boldly, and its spines crumble.

To Nimitz, the solution was obvious. Admiral Sims was right: the carrier, not the battleship, was the chief capital ship, and the concentric-circle formation should have the carrier at its center.

But Nimitz was very careful not to criticize Halsey in any way or to allow even a hint of controversy to enter the official records.

At his new headquarters in Melbourne, Australia, MacArthur granted Time correspondent Theodore H. White an interview and “managed to denounce all at once, and with equal gusto and abandon,” Franklin Roosevelt, George Marshall, Harry Luce (Time’s publisher), and the U.S. Navy. “White,” MacArthur lectured, “the best navy in the world is the Japanese navy. A first-class navy. Then comes the British Navy. The U.S. Navy is a fourth-class navy, not even as good as the Italian navy.

Marshall was forced to acknowledge that there was little he could do but acquiesce to the reverse in the South Pacific, where so many of the operations were to be on or near water. King later described these discussions as having “to ‘educate’ the Army people.

Admiral William Halsey Jr. sent out the Washington and the South Dakota, two US battleships,

Halsey was a guy who got things done and King definitely liked and respected that quality.

Nimitz kept avoiding the hands that attempted to steer him off the wing and into a crash boat. Finally, an eighteen-year-old seaman second class lost patience with the white-haired gentleman, and knowing neither his identity nor his rank, he shouted out, “Commander, if you would only get the hell out of the way, maybe we could get something done around here.” Nimitz merely nodded and finally clambered into the waiting boat.

I’ve tried to analyze the four five-star Admirals that we’ve had in this Navy,” Smoot reminisced. “You have a man like King—a terrifically ‘hew to the line’ hard martinet, stony steely gentleman; the grandfather and really lovable old man Nimitz—the most beloved man I’ve ever known; the complete and utter clown Halsey—a clown but if he said, ‘Let’s go to hell together,’ you’d go to hell with him; and then the diplomat Leahy—the open-handed, effluent diplomat Leahy. Four more different men never lived and they all got to be five-star admirals, and why?”15 Smoot answered his own question with one word: “leadership.” Each of the fleet admirals, he said, had “the ability to make men admire them one way or another.” But

Nimitz paused to write his daily letter to Catherine, which was his ritual whenever and for however long they were apart. Having

Few love affairs could surpass the devotion, companionship, and mutual adoration shared by Chester and Catherine Nimitz. They were first and foremost—in the catchphrase of a later generation—“soul mates.” They routinely wrote each other almost daily when they were apart, and no matter what the turmoil swirling around them, their letters always managed to convey an intimate, personal touch, as if the other was truly the most important person in the world—which they were. “You are ever in my thoughts,” he told her, “and I am happiest when I know you are well and happy.”15

The ultimate test of any military commander, however, is that he rises or falls with whatever glories or misfortunes befall his command. Sometimes he is responsible, sometimes he is not, but as the commander he is always accountable nonetheless.

The general once described Eisenhower as “the best clerk I ever had,” and after serving MacArthur as an aide in both Washington and the Philippines, Eisenhower was well versed in his theatrical ways. “In many ways MacArthur is as big a baby as ever,” Eisenhower noted. “But we’ve got to keep him fighting.” 20

General Douglas MacArthur was the most brilliant, most important, and most valuable military leader in American history—at least that’s what Douglas MacArthur thought. When asked by a proper British gentlewoman if he had ever met the famous general, Dwight D. Eisenhower—himself about to march into history—supposedly replied, “Not only have I met him, ma’am; I studied dramatics under him for five years in Washington and four years in the Philippines.

Then King repeated the doctrine of taking calculated risks with concentrated forces that Nimitz had just employed at Coral Sea and Midway. “Don’t forget the proposition,” the admiral told the reporters, “that the minute you try to be strong everywhere, you have only the men available—it means you will be weak everywhere.

Later, much would be made of the fact that October 25 was the ninetieth anniversary of the Crimean War’s Battle of Balaklava, immortalized by Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade.” Twice the poem critically asserts, “All the world wonder’d” at such a military blunder. The young ensign who encoded the message later claimed that “The world wonders” buffer was “just something that popped into my head.” But every man of Halsey’s generation knew well the reference, and the damage had been done.

Assignments ashore and on ship came and went, but one’s academy classmates were forever. From Manila to Panama or Honolulu to Guantánamo Bay, the fraternity gathered just as if its members were still on the banks of the Severn.

Jervis exclaimed, “Pitt is the greatest fool that ever existed to encourage a mode of war which those who command the sea do not want and which, if successful, will deprive them of it.

the result of this engagement plainly indicates that a cool-headed commander who gets into the fight first and proceeds to business has the best of the battle from the start.

The academy certainly wasn’t an absolute requirement for flag rank, but between the Spanish-American War, when Annapolis increased its enrollment, and World War II, no nongraduate attained flag rank.

In a minute and a half Halsey’s destroyers had done a million and a half dollars’ worth of damage” in a mock attack that should have been a rude wake-up call to the battleship admirals.

They advanced on a zigzagging track as a measure against enemy submarines, but that required mass-choreographed maneuvers that could easily go awry. When one of the cruisers missed a turn and dropped out of position, her captain received a sarcastic message by blinker light from Admiral Halsey: “May I suggest that if at all convenient you get where you belong?” Shortly afterward, he received another: “Have you any officer aboard able to judge distance accurately within 6,000 yards?

Whatever anxiety crew members on the Arizona and throughout the Pacific Fleet felt about the future would have been heightened had they known that on this same Thanksgiving day, the War and Navy departments in Washington issued what came to be called their “war warning” to all commands: “negotiations with Japan looking toward stabilization of conditions in the Pacific have ceased and an aggressive move by Japan is expected within the next few days.” At Pearl Harbor, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, met with Vice Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., the commander of his carrier forces, and Army Lieutenant General Walter C. Short, commander of land forces in Hawaii. Kimmel and Halsey had already organized task forces of cruisers and destroyers around the three aircraft carriers then operating in the Pacific: Lexington (CV-2), Saratoga (CV-3), and Enterprise (CV-6). To guard against a concerted attack or sabotage, they adopted a general protocol that only one carrier task force would be in Pearl Harbor at any one time. At the moment, this meant alternating between Lexington and Enterprise because Saratoga had yet to return to Hawaiian waters after a lengthy overhaul at Bremerton. A similar alternating routine was supposed to be in place among the three battleship divisions. Of the nine battleships in those three-ship divisions, Colorado was currently in Bremerton undergoing its own overhaul. With the war warning in hand, Admiral Kimmel and General Short concerned themselves primarily with the outer boundaries of their commands and not with Hawaii itself. The chief topic they discussed with Halsey was the delivery of aircraft to reinforce garrisons on Wake and Midway islands. Short wanted to deploy Army squadrons of new P-40s, but Halsey quoted an arcane regulation that Army pilots were required to stay within fifteen miles of land and asked what good they would be in protecting an island.

These young pilots acted as if they were playing football,” Admiral Halsey later said. “They’d fight like the devil, then take a short time-out, and get back into the fight again.

To Mayo, this meant “passing down the chain of command the handling of all details to the lowest link in the chain which could properly handle them,” while keeping in hand matters of policy and strategic importance.

Naval aviation and America’s submarine force would continue their ascension as both spear point and deterrent, but for the fleet admirals, September 2, 1945, was the apex of their careers.

Leadership,” said Nimitz, “consists of picking good men and helping them do their best for you. The attributes of loyalty, discipline and devotion to duty on the part of subordinates must be matched by patience, tolerance and understanding on the part of superiors.

The ultimate test of any military commander, however, is that he rises or falls with whatever glories or misfortunes befall his command. Sometimes he is responsible, sometimes he is not, but as the commander he is always accountable nonetheless

MacArthur “might have made a better showing at the beaches and passes, and certainly he should have saved his planes on December 8,” a newly appointed brigadier general who had long served as the general’s aide confided to his diary. “But,” wrote Dwight D. Eisenhower, “he’s still the hero.

The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment … It was a mistake to ever drop it … [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it …

Yes, in the last war King had convinced Admiral Henry T. Mayo of the importance of delegating and then trusting his destroyer captains; he had preached the importance of individual training and career advancement so as to be fully capable of executing such instructions; but when push came to shove, King had always had a terrible time biting his own sharp tongue and trusting that his orders would be carried out.

How long American naval superiority will last is uncertain, but as to whether or not it matters, history shows the answer to be a resounding yes. China holds approximately $1.2 trillion of United States debt. In a global economy of friendly competition, many view this as a matter of course. But what if China used $12 billion of this debt—1 percent—to deploy an aircraft carrier operating off each coast of the United States? The dynamics suddenly change. Whether the threat comes from another country or from machine-gun-toting pirates or suicide terrorists, an international economy requires naval power.

You will,” Leahy once told graduating midshipmen, “all have to a greater or lesser degree something else that is intangible… a combination of loyalty to ideals, tradition, courage, devotion, clean living, and clear thinking. It is more than ‘esprit de corps’ because it reaches far beyond the corps and comradeship.” Just as this intangible element defined the navy’s four fleet admirals, it characterizes all who pass through the gates of the United States Naval Academy and inexorably binds them to the navy, to one another, and to the steadfast service of their country

This escapade taught me a lesson,” Nimitz later recalled, “to look with lenient and tolerant eye on first offenders when in later years they appeared before me as a Commanding Officer holding Mast.”8

You could no more educate sailors in a shore college than you could teach ducks to swim in a garret”—

From: HALSEY To: ALL SHIPS SOPAC, ALL COMD’G GENERALS SOPAC TO THE SUPERB OFFICERS AND MEN UNDER THE SEA AND ON THE SEA AND IN THE AIR WHO HAVE IN THE PAST FEW DAYS PERFORMED SUCH MAGNIFICENT FEATS FOR THE U.S.:

KEEP EM DYING.

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