General Board 's inspection tour of
Naval Station Pearl Harbor on 12 April 1940. Left to right: King, Rear Admiral
Arthur L. Bristol,
Charles Edison, Rear Admiral
Claude C. Bloch and Captain
Elliott Buckmaster. |alt=Black and white photograph of five men; two men each in white naval uniform with caps standing to the right and left of a man in a suit with a top hat; a car and an opened hangar are at their right and to the back, a group of men in white naval uniform is at the bottom extreme left King hoped to be appointed CNO or Commander in Chief,
United States Fleet (CINCUS), but on 1 July 1939, he reverted to his permanent rank of rear admiral and was posted to the
General Board, an
elephants' graveyard where senior officers spent the time remaining before retirement. A series of extraordinary events would alter this outcome. In March, April and May 1940, King accompanied the Secretary of the Navy,
Charles Edison, Edison's naval aide, Captain
Morton L. Deyo, and Edison's friend
Arthur Walsh on a six-week tour of naval bases in the Pacific. En route they stopped in Hollywood to preview
Edison, the Man, a
biographical film about the life of
Edison's father starring
Spencer Tracy. "I understand", Walsh told King, referring to a popular myth, "that you shave with a blowtorch." King replied that this was an exaggeration. Walsh liked the story so much he told everyone he met, and eventually had
Tiffany & Co. make a scale model of a blowtorch, which he presented to King. When they returned to Washington, D.C., Edison gave King a special assignment: to improve the anti-aircraft defenses of the fleet. Experiments with radio-controlled drones making passes at ships in February 1939 had shown that they were very difficult to shoot down. Aircraft were flying faster and carrying bigger bombs, posing a greater threat to the fleet, which would soon be confirmed in combat. King looked over the plans for each type of ship and made recommendations as to what kind of guns could be installed, where they should be located, and what should be removed to make way for them. He prepared a request for $300 million to carry out the program. Edison was impressed, and wrote to Roosevelt, recommending that King be appointed CINCUS, but Roosevelt did not make the appointment, influenced by King's heavy drinking.
Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet on the cruiser in Bermuda in September 1941|alt=Black and white photograph of two men. One is in a suit with his hand placed on the ship's deck's inner railing, the other is in white naval uniform with a cap, two men in khaki are to their left while an oil tanker is to their right The CNO, Admiral
Harold R. Stark, considered King's talent for command was best employed in efforts to organize American strategy in conjunction with the British, once King reported to the general board. In September 1940, Stark summoned King to his office, along with the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, Rear Admiral
Chester W. Nimitz, and offered King the command of the
Atlantic Squadron. Nimitz explained that while King had been a vice admiral in his last seagoing command, he would only be a rear admiral for this one. King replied that he did not care, and accepted the position. However, his assumption of command was delayed for a month by a
hernia operation, and then several more weeks while he accompanied Edison's successor,
Frank Knox, on another inspection tour, this time of bases in the Atlantic. On 17 December 1940, King raised his flag as Commander, Patrol Force (as the Atlantic Squadron had been renamed on 1 November) on the battleship in
Norfolk, Virginia. When he examined the war plan in the safe, he found it was for a war with Mexico. His first order, issued three days later, was to place the Patrol Force on a war footing. He astonished subordinates by stating that the United States was already at war with Germany. In January 1941 King issued
Atlantic Fleet directive CINCLANT Serial 053, encouraging officers to delegate and avoid micromanagement, which is still cited widely in today's armed forces. The Patrol Force was designated the Atlantic Fleet on 1 February 1941. King was promoted to admiral and became the Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet (CINCLANT). and
Winston Churchill on the quarterdeck of during the
Atlantic Conference, 10 August 1941. King and Admiral
Harold R. Stark stand behind them.|alt=Black and white photograph of a group of officers in uniforms and white or black caps standing behind two men seated on chairs talking to each other; the one on the left is in suit and tie, the one on the right is in a naval jacket and a black cap In April 1941, King was summoned to
Hyde Park, New York, where Roosevelt informed him of an upcoming conference with the
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,
Winston Churchill, at
Argentia. He went to Hyde Park again in July to make further arrangements. King found the old
Texas to be unsuitable as a flagship, and on 24 April he switched to the cruiser once she had completed an overhaul. So it was that in August it was
Augusta that took Roosevelt to the
Atlantic Conference, where King and British Admiral Sir
Percy Noble worked out the details for the United States Navy escorting convoys halfway across the Atlantic. Rather than risk a conflict with the United States on the eve of the
invasion of the Soviet Union, the Germans withdrew their submarines from the western Atlantic. This emboldened Roosevelt to take further steps. He declared a National Emergency on 27 May. On 19 July, King issued orders creating Task Force 1, with the mission of escorting convoys to Iceland, which had been occupied by the
U.S. Marines. Nominally, the convoys were American, but ships of any nationality were free to join. From 1 September, convoys were escorted to a mid-ocean meeting point, where they met escorts from the Royal Navy and
Royal Canadian Navy. The United States was now engaged in an undeclared war, although they were still restricted by the
Neutrality Acts of the 1930s. On 31 October, the destroyer became the first U.S. warship to be sunk by a German
U-boat. In response to this and other incidents, Congress amended the Neutrality Acts in November, allowing merchant ships to be armed and to deliver goods to British ports.
Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet Staff , Vice Admiral
Frederick J. Horne, King, Vice Admiral
Russell Willson and Rear Admiral
Richard S. Edwards. |alt=Black and white photograph of five men in naval uniform seated, in front of a table which has on top of it, from left to right, a book and paper, a beeper, an ashtray, a large map and a rotary dial telephone With the
United States declaration of war on Germany on 11 December, the Atlantic Fleet was officially at war. On 20 December, King became CINCUS. Ten days later he hoisted his flag on and was succeeded as CINCLANT by Admiral
Royal E. Ingersoll. Nimitz became the Commander in Chief of the
Pacific Fleet on the same day. Legend has it that King said: "When they get into trouble, they call for the sons-of-bitches."
John L. McCrea, Roosevelt's naval aide, asked King if he actually had said it. King replied that he had not, but would have if he had thought of it. The abbreviation CINCUS (pronounced "sink-us") seemed inappropriate after the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and on 12 March 1942, King officially changed it to COMINCH. Stark was reluctant to part with Ingersoll as his chief of staff, but King insisted that he was needed as CINCLANT. He offered Rear Admiral
Russell Willson, the Superintendent of the Naval Academy, and Rear Admiral
Frederick J. Horne, from the General Board, as replacements. Stark chose Horne, and King then took Willson as his own chief of staff. Rear Admiral
Richard S. Edwards, who had served King as Commander, Submarines, Atlantic Fleet, became his deputy chief of staff. For assistant chiefs of staff, King selected Rear Admirals Richmond K. Turner and
Willis A. Lee. , D.C.|alt=Color photograph of a ship docked at a yard King did not get along with Willson; their personalities were too different, and later admitted that he had made a mistake in appointing him. King had Willson retired in August 1942 due to heart conduction and replaced him with Edwards. When Turner went to the South Pacific for the
Guadalcanal campaign, he was succeeded by Rear Admiral
Charles M. Cooke Jr. Although he was now based at the Navy Department in Washington, D.C., King wanted to be able to put to sea himself at any time. For his flagship, he selected the , a luxury yacht formerly owned by the family of
Horace Dodge, which King renamed USS
Dauntless. King lived on board
Dauntless, which spent most of the war at anchor at the
Washington Navy Yard. Senator
Harry S. Truman asked for an accounting of the cost of
Dauntless. Congressman
Harry R. Sheppard launched a formal investigation, and the cost of maintaining
Dauntless in 1943 was assessed at $252,077 (equivalent to $ in ). King informed Knox that he had confirmed this sum, and that there were opportunities to save $77.00. The
Truman Committee was so informed. Roosevelt's response was: "if
Saint George and his warhorse can keep our boys pitching dung and polishing his boots at
Fort Myer then Ernie should get to keep his toys too."
Joint Chiefs of Staff When the American chiefs of staff, which included King and Stark, met with the British
Chiefs of Staff Committee at the
Arcadia Conference in Washington, D.C., from 24 December 1941 to 14 January 1942, they agreed to merge their organizations to form the
Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS), which held its first meeting in Washington, D.C., on 23 January 1942. To parallel the British chiefs, the Americans formed the
Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), which held its first meeting on 9 February 1942. The Joint Chiefs of Staff initially consisted of Stark, King,
General George C. Marshall, the
Chief of Staff of the United States Army, and
Lieutenant General Henry H. Arnold, the Chief of the
United States Army Air Corps. In his role as a member of the CCS and JCS, King became engaged in the formulation of
grand strategy, which came to occupy the majority of his time. lunches were held every Wednesday. Left to right: General
Henry H. Arnold, Admiral
William D. Leahy, King, and General
George C. Marshall.|alt=Color photograph of four uniformed men seated at a lunch table Roosevelt's Executive Order 8984 made COMINCH the commander of the operational forces of the navy, and "directly responsible, under the general direction of the Secretary of the Navy, to the President of the United States." There was considerable overlap between the roles of COMINCH and CNO, and on Stark's advice, Roosevelt combined the duties of the two with Executive Order 9096. On 26 March, King succeeded Stark as CNO, becoming the only officer to hold this combined command. On the same date, Horne became the Vice Chief of Naval Operations. Although King was both COMINCH and CNO, the two offices remained separate and distinct. Stark became Commander,
U.S. Naval Forces, Europe. Edwards, Cooke and Horne remained with King for the duration of the war, but more junior officers were brought in for periods of up to a year and then returned to sea duty. Stark left the JCS in March 1942 when King succeeded him as CNO, reducing its membership to three until July 1942. Marshall advocated a joint general staff, but in the face of opposition from King, he backed down on the idea of an executive head of the services. Instead, Marshall pressed for a senior officer to act as a JCS spokesperson and a liaison between the JCS and the President. He nominated Leahy for the post, hoping that a naval officer would be more acceptable to King. King remained opposed, but Roosevelt was convinced of the merits of the proposal. On 21 July 1942, Leahy was appointed Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy and became the fourth member of the JCS. As the senior officer, Leahy chaired its meetings, but he did not exercise any command authority. King and Marshall retained their direct access to the President. King had thirty-two official meetings with Roosevelt at the White House in 1942, but only eight in 1943, nine in 1944 and just one in 1945. When King turned 64 on 23 November 1942, King wrote Roosevelt to say he had reached mandatory retirement age. Roosevelt replied with a note saying: "So what, old top? I may send you a birthday present." (The present was a framed photograph.) Although King remained the second most senior officer on the active list after Stark, he now served at Roosevelt's pleasure, as he could be transferred to the retired list at any time. This remained the case until December 1944, when Leahy and then King were promoted to the newly-established five-star rank of
fleet admiral.
Civil-Naval relations Roosevelt was not above micromanaging the navy. For example, in early 1942 he sent explicit instructions to Admiral
Thomas C. Hart, the commander of the Asiatic Fleet, detailing how he wanted surveillance patrols run. Roosevelt granted Marshall broad authority to reorganize the
War Department, but King's authority was more constrained. King, acting on a suggestion from Roosevelt that he "streamline" the Navy Department, ordered a restructure on 28 May. It was opposed by Knox and the
Under Secretary of the Navy,
James V. Forrestal, who saw it a challenge to their authority, and by the bureau chiefs, who feared a loss of their autonomy. Most importantly, it was opposed by Roosevelt, who, on 12 June, ordered Knox to cancel everything King had done. Roosevelt did assent to King's proposal to create the post of Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Aviation (DCNO (Air)), but in a note to Knox in August 1943 he wrote: "Tell Ernie once more: No reorganizing of the Navy Dept. set-up during the war. Let's win it first." takes the oath of office as 40th
Secretary of the Navy.|alt=Color photograph of three men, two of them in naval uniforms are at the right, the one at the center has his right hand raised, the third is in suit and tie at the left, who also has his right hand raised With King reporting directly to Roosevelt and only under his "general supervision", Knox saw King as a threat to his authority. He attempted to remove King in 1942 by suggesting he assume command in the Pacific as COMINCH, but this was not possible because as a member of the JCS, King had to remain in Washington, D.C. The following year, Knox tried to have Horne, who dealt with most of the CNO work like preparing budgets and appearing before Congress, appointed as CNO. This too failed, as it required executive action by Roosevelt, and King elevated Edwards over Horne's head to the new position of deputy COMINCH and deputy CNO on 1 October 1944. Cooke replaced Edwards as chief of staff to the CNO. Knox died from a
heart attack on 28 April 1944, and Roosevelt nominated Forrestal as his replacement. As Under Secretary of the Navy, Forrestal was familiar with naval issues, and he had a good track record managing the navy's procurement program. He was unanimously confirmed by the Senate, but King and Forrestal clashed.
Ships and manpower The Navy had always thought in terms of ships, but more were on order than the Navy had personnel to crew them. The fleet grew faster than expected because plans assumed losses on the scale of 1942, but in fact they were much fewer. With the Navy now dominated by aviators and submariners, the easiest target for ship cancellations were the battleships. In May 1942, King had indefinitely deferred construction of five, including all the , in favor of more aircraft carriers and cruisers. King had opposed construction of the
Montana class while he was on the General Board on the grounds that they were too big to fit through the
Panama Canal. , at right, about to be launched at
Henry J. Kaiser's shipyard in
Vancouver, Washington, on 5 April 1943. Two of her 49 sister ships are under construction at left.|alt=Black and white photograph of numerous people standing on a concrete surface, in front of three ships under construction with cranes on top of them Aircraft carriers were another matter; King strongly opposed Roosevelt's proposal in August 1942 to defer the s on the grounds that they would consume too many resources and were unlikely to be completed until after the war. Eventually Roosevelt authorized them, but his forecast proved correct. However King gave way to Roosevelt on the issue of
escort carriers; while he believed that nothing smaller than the would be useful in the Pacific war, he accepted Roosevelt's argument that it was important to get new aircraft carriers in commission quickly. In 1943, with the war against the U-boats being won, King canceled 200 of the 1,000 destroyer escorts on order, but backed off canceling another 200 when the Bureau of Ships protested. By March 1944, it was estimated that the Navy would reach its manpower ceiling by August, and would require 340,000 more sailors by the end of the year for ships under construction, which included nine
Essex-class carriers. On 2 July, King asked the Joint Chiefs to approve an increase of 390,000 men. The Army did not object, as it was more than 300,000 over its own personnel ceiling, and needed assault shipping for the
Philippines campaign. It was noted that this would exacerbate the national labor shortage and adversely affect the munitions industry, and drastic measures might be required if the Army ran into more manpower difficulties, as indeed occurred.
War in the Atlantic When war was declared on Germany, an attack on coastal shipping by U-boats was anticipated, as this was what had happened in World War I. On 12 December 1941, German U-boat commander,
Karl Dönitz, ordered an attack, codenamed Operation ("Roll of the drums" or "drumbeat"). The following day, King issued a warning to all Atlantic commands of an impending German U-boat attack. This did not occur immediately, because the U-boats had been withdrawn from the Western Atlantic and priority was accorded to operations in the Mediterranean. Some use was made of this respite to lay a defensive
naval minefield and erect protective harbor
anti-submarine nets and
booms. Only the long-range
Type IX and some
Type VII submarines could reach the Western Atlantic, so only six to eight U-boats were on station of the East coast between January and June 1942. His advocacy for using Soviet and Chinese armies to defeat the Axis Tripartite also upset the politically charged debates within the Combined and Joint Chiefs of Staff. At the
Cairo Conference in 1943, he was accused by British
Field Marshal Sir
Alan Brooke of favoring the Pacific war, and the argument became heated. The combative Lieutenant General
Joseph Stilwell wrote: "Brooke got nasty, and King got good and sore. King almost climbed over the table at Brooke. God, he was mad. I wished he had socked him." One of King's daughters was quoted as saying of her father: "he is the most even tempered person in the United States Navy. He is always in a rage." King's focus on China upset the deliberations concerning the sequence of priorities in the
Pacific War. King empowered temporary Rear Admiral
Milton E. Miles to act as his personal authority in China, which upset transatlantic relationships at the highest levels of Allied command.
Relations with the British in Quebec in September 1944.|alt=Black and white photograph of two rows of men. Six men each are seated and standing in varying attire The deployment of a British fleet to the Pacific was a political matter. The measure was forced on Churchill by the British Chiefs of Staff, not merely to re-establish British presence in the region, but to mitigate any impression in the US that the British were doing nothing to help defeat Japan. At the
Octagon Conference in Quebec in September 1944, King was adamant that naval operations against Japan remain focused upon the final war aims of stabilization in Europe and Asia. He resisted efforts to intermix British and American naval forces, leading some historians to portray King as an
Anglophobe. Such a characterization failed to reflect the historical understanding and deeper commitment King demonstrated as a strategist seeking to win as quickly and efficiently as possible in the global war at sea. King cited the logistical and technical difficulties in maintaining British naval forces in the Pacific, details that he was intimately familiar with as a former aircraft carrier captain. The Royal Navy was designed for short-range operations in a cool climate; in the Pacific it would require its own ammunition and refrigerated cargo ships. Even American-supplied aircraft could not be used unmodified. Roosevelt and Leahy overruled him, and the Joint Chiefs accepted the British offer provided that the fleet would be fully self-supporting. Despite King's reservations, the
British Pacific Fleet acquitted itself well against Japan in the last months of the war. King's concerns about logistics were valid, and the British Pacific Fleet was not fully self-supporting. Like most Americans, King was opposed to operations that would assist the British, French and Dutch in reclaiming their pre-war overseas possessions in South East Asia. Although frequently described as Anglophobic, King was proud of his British ancestry, enjoyed his visits to the United Kingdom and established good relations with many of his British colleagues. When a
Royal Air Force officer complained that King was anti-British, Field Marshal Sir
John Dill said King was pro-American rather than anti-British. When Dill was in hospital, King visited him every day. When Admiral Sir
James Somerville was placed in charge of the British naval delegation in Washington, D.C., in October 1944 he managed—to the surprise of almost everyone—to get on very well with the notoriously abrasive King. General
Hastings Ismay described King as: ==Retirement and death==