Thanks to Wendell Erwin for recommending this excellent group biography of the only four men to ever wear five stars in the Navy. They all graduated from Annapolis around the turn of the century ( Leahy-'97, King-'01, Halsey-'04 and Nimitz-'05) and saw early duty in America's burgeoning Navy. Halsey and Leahy both met the young Asst. Navy Secretary, Franklin Roosevelt; Leahy and FDR became fast friends. All four participated in the Navy's convoying activities in our very limited WW1 naval actions and their year-and-a-half at war demonstrated that submarines and naval air power threatened the primacy of battleships. The inter-war years saw downsizing, naval disarmament treaties and the on-going questioning of the relevancy of the battleship. Nimitz and King went into submarines and King then qualified as a naval aviator. Halsey was a destroyer man and the older Leahy was appointed CNO. He used his Washington time to hone his political skills and bolster his relationship with FDR. When Leahy retired in 1939, the President assured him he would be back "if we ever have a war". On Dec. 7, 1941, Leahy was on a mission to Vichy, King in command of the Atlantic fleet, Nimitz head of personnel in Washington, and Halsey sailing to Oahu after dropping off planes at Wake Island.
Ernest King was returned to Washington and made Fleet Admiral and commander of the entire US Navy. Chester Nimitz was sent to Pearl and made CINCPAC and told to stay there until the war was won. The attack on Pearl Harbor is remembered as a disaster of the highest order, but the author points out that it was the aging battleships that were sunk. The oil storage facilities and the submarine base were unscathed and the three carriers were at sea. We struck back at Coral Sea and most importantly, at Midway. Bill Leahy was recalled to active duty in July and appointed the Presidents personal military advisor and the Chairman of the JCS. Bill Halsey had launched Doolittle's Raid but had missed Midway because of an illness, and had told the June 1942 graduating Annapolis class that he was "going back to the Pacific where he intended to personally have a crack at those yellow-bellied sons of bitches and their carriers." Halsey whose oft-quoted mantra was "kill Japs, kill Japs, kill more Japs" also had the personal skills to be the one person in the Navy who could work well with MacArthur, and together they lead the charge across the Pacific. Victory piled on victory and soon the end was in sight. Congress authorized the granting of five-star rank for four men in the Army and Navy in Dec. 1944. In sequence, they went to Leahy, King, Nimitz and Halsey, and, for the Army to Marshall, MacArthur, Eisenhower and Arnold. The power to award a fifth star lapsed at the end of hostilities plus six months.
The most important take away for me in this book was Frank Leahy's role as key advisor to both FDR and Truman. The author contends that for most of Roosevelt's final year, Leahy operated as an almost de facto President - indeed he labels a chapter 'Interim President'. Nor was I aware that he stayed on as Chairman of the JCS for another four years under Truman. The author refers to his role as a combined National Security Advisor/JCS Chair/Chief of Staff. That is a remarkably long time for one individual to be at the center of such momentous events. The other thought that crossed my mind thinking about the men who made the strategic decisions on both sides in the war is the changes they saw in their lifetimes. Whether Allied or Axis, they were born in an era without electricity, telephone or radio and finished their careers in the atomic era. This is a very, very good book.
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