The FReeper Foxhole Profiles Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King - June 28th, 2003

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq36-3.htm ^

[SAMWolf]

Someone once asked Admiral Ernest J. King if it was he who said, "When they get in trouble they send for the sonsabitches." He replied that he was not -- but that he would have said it if he had thought of it.

Although never accused of having a warm personality, Ernest J. King commanded the respect of everyone familiar with his work. His is one of the great American naval careers, his place in history forever secured by a remarkable contribution to the Allied victory in the Second World War. "Lord how I need him," wrote Navy Secretary Frank Knox on December 23, 1941, the day he summoned King to take control of the Navy at its lowest point, the aftermath of Pearl Harbor.

Raised in a stern Calvinist home in Lorain, Ohio, Ernest King grew interested in a naval career after reading an article in a boys' magazine. After graduating from Annapolis fourth in his class (1901), King's early career was "rather ordinary" according to biographer Robert W. Love. But in 1909, at the end of a stint as a drillmaster at the Naval Academy, King distinguished himself by writing an influential essay entitled, "Organization on Board Ship." King performed well in a number of commands between 1914 and 1923, when he began a three-year stint as commander of the submarine base at New London, Connecticut. In 1926 his career took an important turn: he completed the shortened flight course at Pensacola, and from that point on, he would see aviation as the decisive element in naval warfare. This conviction deepened when he served as assistant bureau chief under Rear Admiral William Moffett, widely considered the father of American naval aviation.

King's career received another boost when he ably commanded his first aircraft carrier, the "Lexington," in the early 1930s. But as his prospects for advancement increased, so did his reputation as a difficult character. "He was meaner than hell," commented one junior officer, reflecting the general opinion that King was as much despised as he was respected. This didn't seem to bother him, though. Love observed that he "seemed almost to pride himself on the fact that he had earned his rank solely on his merits as a professional naval officer, rather than as a result of the friendship of others."

In the spring of 1939, the sixty-year-old King coveted the job of Chief of Naval Operations. But his personality and decided lack of political skill or tact led President Roosevelt to pass him over in favor of Admiral Harold Stark. Seemingly banished to duty on the General Board in Washington, King's career was resurrected by the war that soon started in Europe. When Stark grew dissatisfied with the commander of his Atlantic Squadron, he looked to King, who took over in December, 1940. With his slogan "do all that we can with what we have," King ably managed the undeclared war with Germany's U-boats. Although his command was limited to the Atlantic, it brought him to Washington frequently and he stayed abreast of developments in the Pacific. The morning after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Stark called him to Washington; soon after he was running the Navy -- first as Commander in Chief of the U.S. Fleet, soon adding the title Chief of Naval Operations, making him the first man to combine both jobs.

In the early months of 1942, King's strategic brilliance earned him the complete confidence of President Roosevelt. When none of the British or American war planners even dared to think of going on the offensive in the Pacific in 1942-43, King successfully lobbied to do just that. "No fighter ever won his fight by covering up -- merely fending off the other fellow's blows," he wrote. "The winner hits and keeps on hitting even though he has to be able to take some stiff blows in order to keep on hitting." It's easy to see why even those who despised Ernest King were glad he was on their side.

[SAMWolf]

Operation Drumbeat was the name Hitler and his admirals gave to the great German submarine offensive against America's east coast shipping. Some believe that the German U-boat offensive gave the United States Navy its greatest defeat in our countries history. The attack on Pearl Harbor had greater shock value but the ships sunk in Hawaii were for the most part obsolete or readily replaceable.

The freighters and tankers sunk in the German offensive were not replaceable until more than a year had past. Admiral Ernest King was a battlewagon admiral who held the British in low esteem according to Gannon. He refused the help and advice of the British, felt convoys were useless, called the British skill on plotting the course of U-boats as "toys and games." He made little effort to install air surveillance of the East Coast and was against using smaller craft to track and fight submarines.

One of his most incomprehensible errors was failing to order seacoast cities towns and even amusement parks to observe blackouts. This meant that American vessels going north or south along our coast were backlit like targets in a shooting gallery.



The Germans themselves were astonished at the ease of their dominance. Yet they continued to operate with little fear of retaliation, for despite the path of destruction being forged just offshore, the U.S. Navy's response was a sluggish one. Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Fleet, did not seem to recognize the serious nature of what was happening, and ignored the protests of his front-line commanders. Destroyers, vessels vital for anti-submarine duty, were deployed elsewhere or kept in port. When patrol planes became available, they were sent to other areas. The British, who were quite aware of the dire situation at hand, offered both recommendations and ships - and were rebuffed on both counts. Unchallenged, the Germans intensified their assault, and the number of sinkings continued to mount.

The ongoing carnage at sea did not go completely unnoticed by the American high command. Of this "Atlantic Pearl Harbor" Army Chief of Staff George Marshall wrote on June 19, 1942, to Admiral King:

"At last, the urgency of the U-boat threat began to hit home. The massive shipping losses, timely British assistance (which was finally accepted), and some hard-learned lessons provoked an effective reaction from the U.S. Navy. Long-range aircraft patrols were implemented, a coastal convoy system was initiated, and more anti-submarine vessels were deployed. A few enemy U-boats were even sunk. By the summer of 1942, the days of spectacular German success were past, and Admiral Donitz wisely withdrew his submarines to other theaters-of-operation. Though merchant ships were lost sporadically off the coast throughout the remainder of the war, nothing approached the bloodbath of early 1942. The terror of "Torpedo Junction" was over, but its crippling final toll included more than eighty sunken ships and hundreds of lives lost in the waters off North Carolina."

Admiral Ernest King (COMINCH and later promoted to Fleet Admiral in 1944,) finally accepted the validity of the British arguments and those of General George C. Marshall. In May, King established a convoy system for American shipping and also improved American antisubmarine aviation. The Allies also had the advantage of an early RADAR system, and the ability to utilize the “Huff-Duff” system of High Frequency Radio Directional Finder.

However, in a six month period, German U-Boats had sunk nearly 400 ships in USN protected waters. Approximately 5,000 lives were lost in “Operation Drumbeat”, the highest number of them being merchant sailors. As reported by Henry Steele Commanger, “in the spring of 1942, merchant seamen had a higher likelihood of being killed than American troops trapped in the jungles of Bataan. And, they died hideously - blown to pieces, frozen solid in icy Atlantic waters, or boiled at sea by oil fires that burned with raging force for miles around sunken tankers.”



The following is an excerpt from the:

THIRD AND FINAL REPORT TO THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY
Covering the period 1 March 1945 to 1 October 1945
by Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King,
Commander in Chief, United States Fleet, and Chief of Naval Operations
(Issued 8 December 1945)

ATLANTIC OPERATIONS

The operations of the United States Navy in the Atlantic and Mediterranean Theaters culminated in the victory of the Allied nations in Europe. The success of the joint antisubmarine campaign and the tremendous achievements in shipbuilding were essential preludes to the landings in Normandy and southern France and the great land offensive, which in three months carried the Allied Expeditionary Forces to the German frontier and brought total victory on German soil six months later. This victory was possible because ships were available and their protection by the Navy effective.

ANTISUBMARINE OPERATIONS

In the antisubmarine campaign our Atlantic Fleet had responsibility for Atlantic areas under United States operational command, and the British Admiralty was responsible for North Atlantic and European operations in which United States naval task forces participated. In the British control areas Commander U.S. Naval Forces in Europe assured proper liaison between the Admiralty and the Tenth Fleet organization in my Headquarters, which was responsible for convoy and routing of United States shipping and the development of plans, weapons, and tactics to be employed in antisubmarine operations.

In the final month of the European war, German submarines made a last determined effort, in great strength, to reach the eastern coast of the United States. That attempt was thwarted by a powerful task force of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, which, during an engagement lasting several days, destroyed five U-Boats. The United States Navy's final successful action against German submarines occurred on 6 May, only two days before V-E day, when a U-boat was sunk off Block Island by the destroyer escort ATHERTON with the frigate MOBERLY assisting. The development of new techniques, the intensive training of antisubmarine crews, and the persistence with which the U-Boats were hunted offensively all played vital parts in the surrender campaign. German submarines began to surface and surrender shortly after V-E day, and U.S. Atlantic Fleet escort vessels brought several of them to the United States east coast ports.

A review of antisubmarine and convoy operations since 1939 illustrates clearly these major naval contributions to victory in Europe. The summarized statistics on the Battle of the Atlantic are as follows:

                 German      Allied           
               Submarines  Shipping      New Construction      Net Gains 
                  Sunk       Sunk   | U.S. | British | Total | Or Losses 
                (Number)              (In thousands of tons) 
 
1939 (4 months)      9         810      101     231      332       -478 
1940                22       4,407      439     780    1,219     -3,188 
1941                35       4,398    1,169     815    1,984     -2,414 
1942                85       8,245    5,339   1,843    7,182     -1,063 
1943               237       3,611   12,384   2,201   14,585    +10,974 
1944               241       1,422   11,639   1,710   13,349    +11,927 
1945 (4 months)    153         458    3,551     283    3,834     +3,376 
                   ---      ------   ------   -----   ------    ------- 
Totals             782      23,351   34,622   7,863   42,485    +19,134 

From the foregoing statistical summary the chief features of the Battle of the Atlantic are clear:

(a) Until the closing months of 1942 the German submarines were continuing to reduce the available total of Allied tonnage;

(b) Antisubmarine operations resulted in the sinking of an average of 12 German submarines per month after 1 January 1943, or a total of 480 in the two years 1943-44;

(c) American shipyards alone produced an average of a million tons per month of new merchant ships after 1 January 1943, or a total of 24,000,000 tons in two years.



In the 12 months from 1 June 1944, 135 convoys arrived in United Kingdom ports from overseas with a total of 7157 merchant ships totaling more than 50,000,000 gross tonnage. The escort of this shipping and the provision of trained naval armed guard crews aboard the merchant vessels were among the primary tasks performed by the United States Navy in the prosecution of the war in Europe. The Navy's antisubmarine campaign with the British-United States integrated convoy system was in great part responsible for the vital shipping necessary for the Allied land offensive which broke into the Fortress of Europe in 1944 and overwhelmed the Germans ashore in 1945.

TENTH FLEET

On 15 June 1945 the Tenth Fleet was dissolved. This effective organization was established 20 May 1943 under my direct command, with Headquarters in the Navy Department, to exercise unity of control over United States antisubmarine operations in that part of the Atlantic Ocean under United States strategic control. The first Chief of Staff of the Tenth Fleet was Rear Admiral Francis S. Low, who was relieved in January 1945 by Rear Admiral A. R. McCann.

To the Tenth Fleet were assigned the following tasks:

(a) Destruction of enemy submarines.

(b) Protection of Allied shipping in the Eastern, Gulf, and Caribbean Sea Frontiers.

(c) Support of other antisubmarine forces of our own and of the other Allied nations operating in the Atlantic areas.

(d) Exercise of control of convoys and shipping that were United States responsibilities.

(e) Correlation of United States antisubmarine training and materiel development.

To accomplish these tasks the Tenth Fleet was organized into four principal divisions: Operations; Antisubmarine Measures (materiel, training, analysis and statistics, and operational research); Convoy and Routing; and a Scientific Council composed of distinguished civilian scientists.

The Tenth was a fleet without a ship. However, this highly specialized command coordinated and directed our naval forces in the Battle of the Atlantic, making available the latest intelligence to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet and to other fleet and sea frontier commanders who directed the actual operations at sea, and supplying antisubmarine training and operating procedures to our forces afloat. The Tenth Fleet correlated the antisubmarine developments of the various technical bureaus of the Navy Department and the fleet training schools concerned with antisubmarine activities. In addition, it worked closely with the General Staff of the United States Army and with the British Admiralty and Canadian Naval Headquarters to avoid duplication and confusion, and to insure that maximum effort would be directed against the German underseas fleet. The effective work of the Tenth Fleet contributed outstandingly to the success of the United States naval operations in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Additional Sources:

http://cindea.tripod.com/Newsletter
www.geocities.com/eighthafhs
www.nps.gov/caha
www.american-partisan.com
www.history.navy.mil
www.sid-ss.net/honors

[SAMWolf]

'I don’t know what this logistics is, but I know I want more of it.'

-- Admiral Ernest King

'How long can the United States afford to continue the cycle of fighting and building and winning and giving away, only to fight and build and win and give away again. Rich as we are, we do not have the human or physical resources to dissipate our patrimony, generation after generation, in this manner.'

-- Admiral Ernest King

'During the past 3 1/2 years, the Navy has been dependent upon the Merchant Marine to supply our far-flung fleet and bases. Without this support, the Navy could not have accomplished its mission. Consequently, it is fitting that the Merchant Marine share in our success as it shared in our trials. The Merchant Marine is a strong bulwark of national defense in peace and war, and a buttress to a sound national economy. A large Merchant Marine is not only an important national resource; it is, in being, an integral part of the country's armed might during time of crisis. During World War II, this precept has been proven.

The Armed Forces, with the help of the Merchant Marine, have pushed the fighting 5,000 miles west. Together, they'll go the rest of the way. '

-- Admiral Ernest King

[SAMWolf]

[snippy_about_it]

.......FALL IN to the FReeper Foxhole!

..........Good Morning Everyone!


If you would like added or removed from our ping list let me know.

[CholeraJoe]

Present!

[GailA]

[snippy_about_it]

First one in! Good morning. Did the pups get you up early?

[snippy_about_it]

I like that one Gail. Go Navy!

[E.G.C.]

Good morning, Snippy. How's it going?

Folks we had a great time with our guests from Texas. They're packing up as I'm typing and should be on their way home soon.

[CholeraJoe]

No, actually I rousted them out. No crying at night cause they've got each other. It was such a good idea getting two. They've ganged up on my left foot at this moment. I'm their big chew toy.

[snippy_about_it]

Good biography today SAM.

I was leaving the biography not thinking much of this Admiral until I read the last quote by him about the Merchant Marines, took some of the 'edge' off my perception of him.

Obviously he was intellegent in other ways but I don't understand how why he was so clueless about the lights on shore.

I remember reading about the shore lights not being ordered out on our eastern shore when you wrote about the U-boats in an earlier thread. It seems so obvious.

I also have to go look up what a Sampson Medal is. I'll bring back a report.

[snippy_about_it]

One more thing. lol.

(That's the problem with learning, I end up with lots of questions.)

I am curious about the use of the word in when talking about which ships he served with i.e., in USS Eagle, in USS Illinois, in USS Connecticut.

Whenever I've referred to the Tarawa crew, I've said on the USS Tarawa, not in.

Pinging some of the Foxhole Navy guys so someone can shed some light on this for me and correct me if I've been incorrect. ;)

[snippy_about_it]

Things are great. I'm glad you enjoyed your company!

[snippy_about_it]

LOL. I got two also when they were pups, it is a good idea. When one has to leave this earth before the other though it's tough, we finally picked up a stray and it gives the other one company even though she didn't like it at first. lol.

I can't believe you had to roust them, you big chew toy. lol.

[Fiddlstix]

Good Morning Everybody.

You Know The Drill
Click the Pics J

I'm testing out a new idea for the coffee and donuts post. Now when you click on the graphics a list should appear in a new window. You may make your own selections of what you want to hear. Let me know if you like it. Thanks.

Coffee & Donuts J

[snippy_about_it]

West Indies Naval Campaign Medal, 1898
(Sampson Medal)

The act of 3 March 1901, provides: "that the Secretary of the Navy be, and he is hereby, authorized to cause to be struck bronze medals commemorative of the naval and other engagements in the waters of the West Indies and on the shores of Cuba during the War with Spain, and to distribute the same to the officers and men of the Navy and Marine Corps who participate in any of said engagements deemed by him of sufficient importance to deserve commemoration."

The commemorative medal was issued to members of the Navy and Marine Corps who took part in West Indies naval operations from April 27 to August 14, 1898.



[Historical note: The front was designed by Charles E. Barber and shows a bust of Admiral William Sampson. The back was designed by George T. Morgan. At the top of the ribbon is a brooch pin with the name of the recipient's ship. Additional matching engagement bars were authorized and mounted on the ribbon. The medal was issued for 47 engagements or skirmishes and some were awarded with six or seven engagement bars. The recipient's name is engraved on the lower rim of the medal, this being one of only two medals officially issued named to a recipient.]

Source: 1948, 1953 U.S. Navy Awards Manual

14 June 1998

[snippy_about_it]

Good morning. I can always use the coffee.

[Soaring Feather]

Good Morning SAM, snippy, everyone.

[snippy_about_it]

Good morning feather.