From Hot War to Cold: The U.S. Navy and National Security Affairs, 1945-1955

From Hot War to Cold

The U.S. Navy and National Security Affairs, 1945-1955

Jeffrey G. Barlow

Stanford University Press

Stanford, California

Editorial and design work

©2009 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University

All rights reserved.

No part of this printing may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press.

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Barlow, Jeffrey G.

From hot war to cold : The U.S. Navy and national security affairs, 1945–1955 / Jeffrey G. Barlow

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

9780804770965

1. United States. Navy—History—20th century. 2. National security—United States—History—20th century. 3. United States—Military policy—Decision making. 4. Interservice rivalry (Armed Forces)—United States—History. 5. Sea-power—United States—History—20th century. 6. United States—History, Naval—20th century. I. Title.

VA58.B37 2009

359’.03097309044—dc22

2008022444

Designed and typeset at Stanford University Press in 10/12.5 Minion

To the naval officers of two U.S. Naval Academy Classes:

USNA Class of 1918—my grandfather Francis G. Barlow’s Class (for most of Plebe Year)

and USNA Class of 1946—my father John F. Barlow’s Class

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgments

A Note on Transliteration

Introduction

CHAPTER 1 - Wartime Organizational Changes in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations

CHAPTER 2 - Initial Challenges: Postwar and Demobilization Planning

CHAPTER 3 - The Navy and Unification

CHAPTER 4 - The National Security Act Achieved

CHAPTER 5 - Preparing for a New Enemy

CHAPTER 6 - War Ends in the Pacific

CHAPTER 7 - Troubles Emerge in Postwar China, 1945–1946

CHAPTER 8 - Assessing and Responding to the Soviet Naval Threat

CHAPTER 9 - Adjusting to the National Military Establishment

CHAPTER 10 - Living in Interesting Times

CHAPTER 11 - Slugging It Out on Capitol Hill

CHAPTER 12 - Events in the Western Pacific

CHAPTER 13 - Troubles on the Korean Peninsula

CHAPTER 14 - Deciding to Fight

CHAPTER 15 - Defending NATO Europe: Planning During the Initial Stages

CHAPTER 16 - The Eisenhower National Security Structure

CHAPTER 17 - Rethinking National Strategy

CHAPTER 18 - Coping with the New Look

CHAPTER 19 - A Crisis Abroad and a CNO’s Departure

Conclusion

Reference Matter

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

During my years of working on this detailed study, I received help from a great many individuals and organizations. I first want to acknowledge the career officers who agreed to be interviewed about aspects of their military service: the late Captain Edward L. Beach, USN (Ret.), the late Admiral Walter F. Boone, USN (Ret.), the late Admiral Arleigh A. Burke, USN (Ret.), the late Admiral Robert B. Carney, USN (Ret.), the late Rear Admiral Thomas D. Davies, USN (Ret.), the late Admiral Robert L. Dennison, USN (Ret.), the late General Andrew J. Goodpaster, USA (Ret.), Vice Admiral Howard E. Greer, USN (Ret.), the late Admiral Charles D. Griffin, USN (Ret.), the late General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, USA (Ret.), the late Captain Frank A. Manson, USN (Ret.), Vice Admiral Gerald E. Miller, USN (Ret.), Captain Robert A. Rowe, USN (Ret.), the late Brigadier General Samuel R. Shaw, USMC (Ret.), and Lieutenant General Woodrow W. Vaughn, USA (Ret.). I also am very grateful to Hugh L. Hanson, who served for many years as one of the Navy’s premier aeronautical engineers, for providing me with original documents and copies of other material related to the Navy’s fight to maintain the status of naval aviation during the late 1940s.

While conducting documentary research for this book, I have had the generous assistance of a substantial number of archivists and librarians around the United States. Those who deserve particular thanks are: James Leyerzapf and David Haight of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas; Bob Clark and the other archivists of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York; Dennis Bilger of the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Missouri; James Hutson and the rest of the staff of the Library of Congress’s Manuscript Division; John Taylor and the present and former archivists of the National Archives and Records Administration facilities in Washington, D.C., and College Park, Maryland, including Richard von Doehnhoff, Barry Zerbe, Sandy Smith, Wilbert Mahoney, Richard Boylan, Dr. Cary Conn, Dr. Timothy Nenninger, and Richard Myers; Velecia Chance and Michael Waesche of the Reference Service Branch of the Washington National Records Center in Suitland, Maryland; the present and former historians of the Air Force Historical Studies Office now located at Anacostia Naval Annex, Washington, D.C., especially Herman Wolk, Dr. George M. Watson, Jr., Dr. Roger G. Miller, Dr. Walton S. Moody, and Sheldon Goldberg; former archivist Fred J. Graboske of the Marine Corps Historical Center, and Dr. Leo J. Daugherty, III (Gunnery Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve) and the other volunteers who were working with the Center’s Personal Papers Collection at the Washington Navy Yard, D.C. (now redesignated the Marine Corps History Division and located at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia); Dr. Elaine M. Cherpak, the archivist of the Naval Historical Collection, U.S. Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island; Mary Marshall Clark and Rosemary Newnham, the Director and Assistant Director of Columbia University’s Oral History Research Office, and Dr. Ronald Grele, Director Emeritus; Nancy Bressler of the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University; the staff of the George C. Marshall Research Library in Lexington, Virginia; Dr. Richard J. Sommers and David A. Keough of the U.S. Army Military History Institute in Carlisle, Pennsylvania; archivist James W. Zoebel of the MacArthur Memorial Library and Archives in Norfolk, Virginia; and the staff of the Archives of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.

During the past decade and a half I also have had the privilege of attending many of the events sponsored at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., by the Cold War International History Project and of receiving its published Bulletins and Working Papers. Our historical knowledge of the Cold War as seen from the perspectives of the leaders of the Soviet Union, China, and the countries of Eastern Europe has been immeasurably advanced by the ongoing activities of the Project and its contributing scholars. And indeed, my own understanding of various aspects of the early Cold War is much the richer because of the Cold War International History Project’s efforts.

Over the many years it took for this manuscript to be completed, my present and former colleagues in the Contemporary History Branch contributed to the effort in a variety of ways. These co-workers include Robert J. Cressman, Dr. Lynne K. Dunn, Dr. Mark H. Jacobsen, Dr. Theresa L. Kraus, Dr. Michael A. Palmer, Dr. Randy Papadopoulos, Richard A. Russell, Dr. Robert J. Schneller, Jr., Dr. John D. Sherwood, and Dr. Clarence E. Wunderlin, Jr. My former Branch Head, Dr. Edward J. Marolda, now Head of the Center’s Histories & Archives Division, and my present Branch Head, Dr. Gary E. Weir, were highly supportive during the research and writing effort.

Sandra J. Doyle, the Center’s Senior Editor, did her usual thorough job in giving the manuscript an initial edit. Ella W. Nargele successfully maneuvered the completed manuscript through the required security and policy review process in seemingly record time. I also wish to thank Chief Daniel Springston, a Navy Reservist who worked on records declassification at the Center in the late 1990s, for bringing to my attention several important, newly declassified transcripts from Admiral Arleigh A. Burke’s personal official papers.

I am also extremely grateful to those Naval Historical Center colleagues who provided expert archival and bibliographic help during the research and writing process. In the Center’s Operational Archives, Bernard F. Cavalcante and Kathleen M. Lloyd, the former and current Branch Heads, and their reference archivists over the years, including Dr. Regina T. Akers, Kenneth Johnson, George W. Pryce, III and Richard M. Walker, provided tremendous assistance in locating potentially valuable documentary materials. In the Center’s Navy Department Library, its successive Directors John E. Vadja, Jean L. Hort, and Glenn E. Helm, and their staff members, including David Brown, Davis Elliott, and Tonya Simpson, directed me to appropriate sources or supplied needed books obtained through interlibrary loan.

Rear Admiral Paul E. Tobin, USN (Ret.), the current Director of Naval History, and his recent predecessors, Dr. William S. Dudley and Dr. Dean C. Allard, provided continuing support for the lengthy research and writing effort this manuscript entailed. I am grateful for their guidance. I also wish to thank Admiral James L. Holloway III, USN (Ret.), Chairman of the Naval Historical Foundation, for his vital support of the completed project.

I also want to extend thanks to those individuals who read and commented on the manuscript as outside reviewers, in particular Vice Admiral Gerald E. Miller, USN (Ret.), Captain Peter M. Swartz, USN (Ret.) of the CNA Corporation’s Center for Strategic Studies, and Dr. Richard H. Immerman, the Edward J. Buthusiem Family Distinguished Faculty Fellow in History and Director of the Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy at Temple University.

In addition, I want to acknowledge the important support provided to me by family, friends, and acquaintances who allowed me to discuss this writing project with them informally over the years. By providing me with an outlet to talk over issues and problems connected with the work, they helped to provide vital morale boosts when these were most needed. Those who deserve special thanks in this regard include my late father Captain John F. Barlow, USN (Ret.), the late Admiral Arleigh A. Burke, USN (Ret.), George W. S. Kuhn, Dr. David Alan Rosenberg, Dr. Jon Tetsuro Sumida, Vice Admiral Emmett H. Tidd, USN (Ret.), Richard A. Russell, Norman Polmar, Curtis A. Utz, Dr. Robert W. Love, Jr., Dr. Sean M. Maloney, John B. Lundstrom, Richard B. Frank, Dr. Roger Dingman, Dr. Thomas C. Hone, and the late Captain Frank A. Manson, USN (Ret.).

Finally, I want to express my gratitude to my wife, Martha, our sons Robert and Andrew, and our daughter Sarah for allowing me to talk of my writing efforts at least occasionally when I was at home and for keeping my spirits up on those fortunately infrequent days when things were not going as well as I had hoped.

I want to make it evident to the reader, however, that whatever errors of fact or interpretation reside in this study remain the author’s responsibility and should not be attributed to any of the people who provided me with research help.

A Note on Transliteration

In Chapters 6 and 7 of this book, the Wade-Giles system for romanizing Chinese proper names and places has been employed, since this system was in common usage during the era of Republican China. Note, however, that the first time that each word appears in the text, it is followed in parenthesis by its now standard pinyin transcription.

Introduction

A country’s national security is the product of many intertwined elements, including internal ones such as its economic strength, the scientific, technological, and industrial skills resident in its population and infrastructure, the sturdiness of its governmental institutions, and the competence of its military forces. Yet external factors also come into play. The context of a state’s geography influences its geopolitical perceptions of security. For example, does it share a contiguous border with neighboring countries that are friendly (or at least neutral toward it) and which possess stable national governments? Or does it instead border on states with hostile or expansionist intentions or ones that are in the throes of revolution or large-scale political unrest? Similarly, the presence or absence of allies elsewhere in the world and the existence of real or perceived threats from potential enemy countries in other portions of the globe or from transnational actors such as terrorist organizations significantly affect the perceptions of a country’s leaders regarding the level of its security.

American historians and political scientists, as much as government decision makers, have wrestled with the concept of national security since the end of World War II. In part because of its somewhat amorphous nature, the mantle of national security can be wrapped around almost any topic one wishes. For the purposes of this book, though, national security is taken to be those aspects of U.S. policy having to do specifically with the interaction of national defense and foreign relations (including military assistance) at the highest governmental levels. Some theoretically minded observers no doubt will find this working definition too broad in scope. This may well be because they view national security policy simply as military policy writ large and, as such, a subject separate and distinct from foreign policy.¹ I would argue, however, that a country’s national security policy emerges at the nexus of defense policy and foreign policy and therefore, although it may be concerned predominantly with military matters, it contains substantial elements of each.

For the United States in the decade after the end of World War II, the effort seen as necessary for maintaining national security expanded tremendously in size and cost over what initially had been envisioned by its leaders. Indeed, by early 1947, recognition that in a period of emerging geopolitical conflict with the Soviet Union the country needed to maintain an ongoing involvement with world political and military events largely had supplanted the isolationist impulses present in prewar America.

During 1945 and 1946, however, the U.S. government lacked the organizational means to allow it to control effectively its vastly increased overseas responsibilities in a world that was swiftly becoming polarized into Western Democratic and Eastern Communist blocs. The organizations required for producing, supporting, and managing American national security policy first emerged with the passage of the National Security Act of 1947, which established a National Security Council to advise the President regarding the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to the national security; a Central Intelligence Agency that, among other things, could correlate and evaluate intelligence relating to national security, and provide for the appropriate dissemination of such intelligence within the Government; and a National Military Establishment, consisting of the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, and the Department of the Air Force and other named agencies, and headed by a Secretary of Defense who would not only exercise general direction, authority, and control over these departments and agencies but who also would serve as the President’s principal assistant in all matters relating to national security.² These organizations were changed and strengthened in subsequent years by the actions of both the President and the Congress. Nonetheless, it took a substantial period of time for national leaders to learn how to use these new organizations to better serve its defense and foreign policy needs.

As one of the country’s two military departments at war’s end in September 1945, the Navy Department was actively engaged in the creation and the functioning of these national security organizations during this decade when one international crisis followed another in a seemingly unwavering fashion. It is because the service had a prominent role in the country’s defense during the early Cold War that focusing on American national security affairs through the lens of the U.S. Navy provides a useful way to examine the complexities that were at all times in play.

Specifically, this study investigates how the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO)—the service’s senior uniformed leader—and the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV) operated within the increasingly centralized post-war security structure to influence U.S. defense policy during the first postwar decade. During this period, the responses of the Navy’s senior officers were heavily shaped by two pivotal events—the fight over service unification that culminated in the passage of the National Security Act and the subsequent controversy over the roles and missions of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The outcomes of these events taught Navy senior flag officers and service planners the importance of being thoroughly prepared to contest each issue in whatever forum was necessary and to recognize that the fight over service prerogatives was not a short-term battle but instead an ongoing struggle. This study attempts to explain how the Chief of Naval Operations, as assisted by OPNAV, was able to maneuver effectively within this structure in order to promote and defend Navy viewpoints on strategy and policy. Providing an accurate analysis of the Navy’s role requires examining not only how it interacted with the other military services, but also with the Secretary of Defense and the Defense Department, the National Security Council, and the President of the United States.

In the past twenty-five years, several federal military history offices have published chronological volumes as part of an ongoing effort to detail the roles that their organizations played in the development of postwar American national security policy. The Historical Office of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), for example, has published to date four volumes of OSD’s history, covering the years from 1947 through 1960.³ Similarly, the Office of Joint History in the Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has released seven volumes of its continuing history of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and national policy.⁴ To date, however, the individual armed services’ history offices have not published studies detailing the actions of their services in the making or prosecuting of U.S. national security policy in the years since 1945. This is unfortunate because it thereby denies us a chance to see how the Army and the Air Force during the Cold War individually developed their high-level positions and how their interactions with other organizations served to modify or otherwise shape the defense policies adopted by the United States at particular points in time.

As noted above, in writing about the U.S. Navy’s role in national security affairs, I have chosen to focus on the decision-making process as seen from the vantage point of the Chief of Naval Operations and secondarily from the perspective of members of key sections of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations that supported him, including the Vice Chief of Naval Operations, the Deputy Chiefs of Naval Operations, the Strategic Plans Division, and the Office of Naval Intelligence. Thus, while I discuss the working relationships of particular CNOs with their respective Secretaries of the Navy during these years, I have made no attempt to provide as detailed an examination of the efforts of the Secretaries in the events analyzed as I have for the Chiefs of Naval Operations.

In the interwar years of the 1920s and 1930s, the War and Navy Departments had served largely as independent actors within the Executive Branch. Although each had been vital in ensuring the country’s security against outside military threats, the departments had been separately administered and thus directly answerable only to the President for the execution of their responsibilities. Cooperation between the two services during these years had been effected only through the relatively circumscribed activities of the Joint Board of the Army and Navy, an organization established in 1903 to facilitate the senior representatives of the Army and Navy reaching common conclusions on all matters calling for the cooperation of the two services.⁵ Given the widely differing perspectives of the Army and Navy staffs on most substantive issues during these decades, it is not surprising that common conclusions had been agreed upon all too infrequently during these years.

The initial step toward the increasing centralization of national security decision-making had been taken in July 1939, just two months before war broke out in Europe. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a Military Order under his power as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, which transferred the Joint Army and Navy Board, the Army and Navy Munitions Board, and several additional agencies into the recently created Executive Office of the President.⁶ Roosevelt had carried out the initiative in order to assume personal oversight over many of the myriad activities connected to American rearmament.⁷ Since the senior service members of the Joint Army and Navy Board were the Army Chief of Staff and the Chief of Naval Operations, the President’s administrative fiat effectively had removed the two service chiefs from the direct control of their Secretaries with regard to certain important matters such as joint war planning. Prior to this change, the Chief of Naval Operations had performed his duties under the authority of the Secretary of the Navy and his orders had been considered as emanating from the Secretary.⁸ In a similar fashion, the Army Chief of Staff had been charged by the Secretary of War with the planning, development, and execution of the military program.⁹

In the wake of the ARCADIA Conference in Washington, D.C. (December 1941–January 1942) following the United States’ entry into the war, President Roosevelt had agreed to the creation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) organization as a counterpart to the British Chiefs of Staff on the newly formed Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee, although he had not granted it a formal charter. The new organization had further centralized defense decision-making by making wartime members of the JCS not only the President’s personal military advisers but also his instruments for developing strategy and for waging global war. From July 1942 onward the membership of the JCS had consisted of Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, Commander in Chief, United States Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations Ernest J. King, Army Air Forces Commanding General Henry H. Arnold, and Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief William D. Leahy.

Because the service secretaries had been excluded from having a part in the larger strategic direction of the war, Admiral King had been able to control many of the operational aspects of the Navy’s wartime combat participation independent of the Secretary of the Navy’s oversight once he had been given the combined responsibilities as Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations (COMINCH/CNO) in March 1942. In the postwar period, under a departmental reorganization, most of the responsibilities of the combined COMINCH/CNO position were carried over and assigned to the officer designated the Chief of Naval Operations, but now the Navy’s senior admiral, as in the years before 1939, performed his service duties, including command of naval operating forces, under the direction of the Secretary of the Navy.

Even though President Roosevelt had refused to provide statutory authority for the JCS system during World War II, its legal status was formally codified with the passage of the National Security Act of 1947. Congressional passage of the 1949 Amendments to the National Security Act established the formal position of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It also established the Department of Defense as an Executive Department of the Government. The adoption of President Eisenhower’s Reorganization Plan No. 6 in 1953 further centralized the national security decision-making process. It strengthened the Defense Secretary’s position by clarifying the lines of authority within the Defense Department and added additional civilian Assistant Secretaries. It also increased the power of the JCS chairman over the Joint Staff at the expense of the corporate body of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. These changes meant that most of what the Chief of Naval Operations accomplished in the period from 1945 through 1955, apart from duties performed specifically within his service, he did as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

It should be noted that because the book’s focus is on national security affairs rather than on high-level policies and programs internal to the Navy, there are many topics of interest related to the service that either are not covered in these pages or receive only passing mention. Indeed, I would argue that there are many such topics that would be worthy of detailed treatment in a volume of their own.

In the decades since 1945, naval historians and policy analysts have studied a number of the subjects that are being examined in this study. By and large, however, their published volumes have focused on discrete issues rather than on a broader sweep of the U.S. Navy’s actions. It is this larger arena on which the present study focuses. While I have used published accounts to good advantage in the present work, in cases where it was possible I have gone back to the original primary documentation used in these earlier works to form the basis for my judgments regarding both the events that occurred and the parts that individual officers played in them. In addition, I have been fortunate in having had the opportunity over the years of interviewing a significant number of retired senior officers about their personal experiences during this hectic decade. Their recorded comments often furnished me with information that was unavailable in the extant documentary record.

I should note at the outset that the unsuspecting reader is likely to find the book a curious amalgam of several different types of history, including administrative history, naval and military history, and diplomatic history. No doubt some naval historians will look at it and say that it contains too much about American foreign policy and not enough about the naval and military subjects of greatest concern to them. I also am certain that many American diplomatic historians who read it will remonstrate that it contains altogether too much military history and that the author has not paid enough attention to particular Cold War foreign policy issues. To some extent I have to agree with both viewpoints. Yet, given the size of the existing volume, I shudder to imagine the magnitude of a study that would be required to cover both topics as completely as subject specialists would like.

Another matter that needs addressing at the outset is the study’s chronological time frame. Although indeed most of the volume is specifically directed toward events that took place from the end of World War II through mid-1955 (when Admiral Robert B. Carney retired as Chief of Naval Operations), the first several substantive chapters return to an earlier period. Chapter 1 on the organizational development of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations goes back to 1939, when Admiral Harold R. Stark became the CNO, just before the outbreak of the war in Europe. It then provides a detailed look at the wartime organizational changes to the combined position of Commander in Chief United States Fleet/Chief of Naval Operations occupied by Admiral Ernest King from March 1942 until the war’s end and finally at the reversion in the immediate postwar period to a strengthened CNO acting under the direction of the Secretary of the Navy—a position that was retained in the years that followed. Chapter 2 examines OPNAV’s experience in postwar planning from 1943 through 1945. Chapters 3 and 4 detail the Navy’s involvement in the fight over unification of the services. An examination of the 1940 antecedents to the unification fight is necessary so that the reader fully understands the Navy’s later wartime and postwar opposition to what it considered a pernicious idea. While the time period covered in the study might have been more clearly delineated by assigning it a starting date in the title that predated 1945, this would have given the reader a false impression that the book would address many other topics from the earlier period. For this reason, I have kept the original 1945–1955 time frame in the title.

One conclusion about the Navy’s role in national security affairs that became evident to me as I conducted research was that despite the ad hoc quality of some of the service’s responses to particular events, OPNAV possessed both an effective decision-making organization and a cadre of extremely competent senior officers during these years. While the naval officers chosen to be CNO during the years examined in this study varied widely both in their interest in and ability to handle larger national security issues, the overall skills possessed by the higher-level officers in OPNAV—the deputies and planners—compensated to a great extent for a particular CNO’s individual shortcomings.

During the early years of the first postwar decade, the development of American national security policy was a hesitant, piecemeal process, as the Truman administration responded to foreign crises in Europe and Asia by establishing incremental programs designed to alleviate the matters at hand rather than attempting to block out long-term responses to the perceived dangers in the larger international arena. Nonetheless, the administration’s declaration of the Truman Doctrine for Greece and Turkey, the establishment of the Marshall Plan to facilitate Europe’s economic recovery, and its role in creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization were major steps in stabilizing the situation in Western Europe in the face of the dominant Soviet conventional military power on the Continent. Unfortunately, as the Communist Chinese takeover in China in 1949 and the North Korean invasion of South Korea in 1950 demonstrated, American policy in Asia—apart from the one successfully carried out in the postwar occupation of Japan—proved inadequate for preventing unwanted changes to friendly political regimes in the region. Although the advent of the Eisenhower administration in 1953 brought with it new international challenges, the death of Joseph Stalin and the armistice in Korea that same year gave renewed hope to American policymakers for strengthening the security of the United States and its allies. The U.S. Navy played an important part in both helping to formulate national security policy and carrying it out.

CHAPTER 1

Wartime Organizational Changes in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations

¹

At 0900 on 2 September 1945, at a mess table placed on the starboard veranda deck of the battleship Missouri (BB 63) anchored in Tokyo Bay, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur opened the ceremony at which the Imperial Government of Japan surrendered to the Allied Powers. Four minutes later, at 0904, Japanese Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Mamoru signed the instrument of surrender, bringing the Second World War—a war of unparalleled scope and horror—officially to a close.²

The many observers to the scene on board Missouri could look across Tokyo Bay and see it filled with Allied men-of-war and auxiliaries of almost every type and size from capital ships to landing ships and craft.³ For U.S. Navy officers in attendance, the surrender ceremony in the presence of so much naval might proved a moving occasion. Just as the surrender formalities concluded, American aircraft in massed formations began a flyover of the bay. Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., Commander Third Fleet, recalled:

I had been called up to stand behind the chair while [Fleet Admiral] Chester [W.] Nimitz was signing for the United States. We had a mass flight of about 400 planes from Task Force 38 in the offing, waiting to come over the MISSOURI at my command. I had asked General MacArthur to please give me the word when he wanted them brought over. He whispered in my ear, Start ’em now. The word was passed over the radio phone to the flight and they made a beautiful and impressive sight as they came over the ships.⁴

On this propitious day, the United States Navy stood at the zenith of its wartime strength—naval power that is difficult to comprehend fully in the early 21st century. As Britain’s Royal Navy had stood astride the world’s oceans as the supreme naval power in November 1918, so now the U.S. Navy was supreme. Having fought in the varied theaters of the war—in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean in collaboration with its British and Canadian counterparts, in the Pacific, largely alone—it had suffered serious initial losses, had learned from many of its mistakes, and ultimately had triumphed against German and Japanese navies that had fought with considerable skill and courage.

The U.S. Navy possessed 1,166 major combatant ships on VJ day, including 23 battleships, 28 aircraft carriers (CVs and CVLs), 71 escort carriers, 73 cruisers, 380 destroyers, and 234 submarines.⁵ It was a fleet the power of which surpassed that of any navy the world had yet seen. Nonetheless, it was suddenly a wasting asset in the new days of peace stretching ahead, and within a few months it would be reduced to a fraction of its fighting strength by the effects of demobilization. This sudden turn from war to peace was conveyed aptly by the words of Admiral Nimitz, which were transmitted by radio throughout the Pacific and the United States following the surrender ceremony, Now we turn to the great tasks of reconstruction and restoration.⁶

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS

In December 1941, the Chief of Naval Operations was Admiral Harold R. Betty Stark. A 1903 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy who had risen in the service as a line officer with a specialty in ordnance, he had commanded four destroyers in succession from 1909 to 1915. In the interwar period as a member of the Gun Club (an appellation given to those who specialized in ordnance and gunnery), Stark had held a variety of responsible positions, including serving as an aide to Navy Secretaries Charles Francis Adams and Claude A. Swanson. After commanding the battleship West Virginia (BB 48), he had spent almost three years as Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance (BUORD).⁷

In early 1939, Admiral William Leahy had only a few months remaining in his term as CNO. Accordingly, Secretary of the Navy Swanson submitted five possible slates for new flag officer assignments to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. One of these combinations had Rear Admiral James O. Richardson, Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, for CNO, while another had Rear Admiral Stark in that position. President Roosevelt eventually decided on a slate that had Stark as CNO and Richardson as Commander Battle Force (to fleet up to Commander in Chief U.S. Fleet after six months).⁸ On 22 March 1939, the President wrote to Stark, whom he had known since Roosevelt’s days as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, It will be grand to have you here as C.N.O. As in the case of Bill Leahy, you and I talk the same language.⁹ Admiral Stark assumed office as CNO on 1 August 1939. As CNO, Stark exhibited the same traits he had shown earlier in his career. Innately modest and considerate of his subordinates, he possessed a great capacity for hard work. His tact and political sensitivity, gained during his tours as a naval aide and as BUORD chief, made him an effective advocate of the Navy in the White House and in testifying before Congress.¹⁰

By regulation, the Chief of Naval Operations, under the direction of the Secretary of the Navy, was charged with the operations of the fleet and with the preparation and readiness of plans for its use in war.¹¹ The CNO’s duties included the direction of all strategic and tactical matters, organization of the fleet, maneuvers, gunnery competitions, drills and exercises, and the training of the fleet for war. Under the Secretary’s direction, the CNO also was responsible for directing the movements and operations of vessels of the Navy, including the time of their assignment for docking, repairs, and alterations . . .¹²

In late 1941, the most serious concern over the role of the Chief of Naval Operations continued to be his relationship with the technical bureaus and the independent offices in the Navy Department. The CNO took precedence over the Navy Department’s bureau chiefs and the heads of its independent offices by virtue of his rank, yet he was not their superior and was not a link in the chain of command between the chiefs and the Secretary of the Navy.¹³ Even though the CNO possessed important coordinative powers over all naval activities by virtue of his authority to operate the fleet in peace and war, this coordination had to be effected through careful and patient effort at achieving cooperation with the bureaus.¹⁴

The Office of the Chief of Naval Operations—formerly the Office of Naval Operations—consisted of the immediate office of the CNO and eleven divisions in December 1941.¹⁵ These divisions included War Plans (Op-12), Central (Op-13), Naval Intelligence (Op-16), Communication (Op-20), Fleet Training (Op-22), and Ship Movements (Op-38).¹⁶

The CNO, the Personal Aide to the CNO, and the Assistant Chief of Naval Operations were part of the immediate office of the Chief of Naval Operations, along with certain other officers who were assigned administrative duties. The Assistant CNO was next in authority to the CNO, serving in a manner similar to a chief of staff to a fleet commander in chief, relieving the Chief of Naval Operations of administrative details and considering all questions of administration or policy proposed by the OPNAV division directors before such matters were referred to the CNO.¹⁷

The War Plans Division in late 1941 was divided into three sections—the Policy and Projects Section, the Plans Section, and the Latin American Defense Section. The Policy and Projects Section was responsible for developing policies and projects in support of war plans and for collaborating with the War Department in preparation of current plans for joint action of the Army and Navy. The Plans Section’s responsibilities included the direction of war planning, the preparation of designated war plans, and collaboration with the War Department in preparation of Joint Basic War Plans.¹⁸

One of the division’s most influential activities in the last years before World War II was its preparation of the Annual Estimate of the Situation, which specified in some detail the yearly degree of progress to be made in many of the ‘Standards of Readiness’ in the War Plans.¹⁹ By the late 1930s, the Navy’s budgetary planning flowed directly from the Annual Estimate. In addition to his OPNAV responsibilities, the director of the War Plans Division served as a member of the Joint Board, the Army-Navy body that met to discuss and reach common understandings on issues requiring cooperation between the two services.²⁰

The Central Division, which was under the Assistant CNO, served largely as an immediate staff for the CNO for coordination of effort with respect to policy and current plans.²¹ Its duties included handling matters of international affairs (including treaties), legislation, regulations and organization, and reports and statements, such as the CNO’s annual report.²² By virtue of its international affairs responsibilities, the Central Division served as OPNAV’s liaison with the State Department.

The Naval Intelligence Division collected, evaluated, and disseminated information pertaining to the political, military, naval, economical, and industrial policies and conditions of the United States and foreign countries, and with the preservation of this information for ready reference and historical purposes.²³ The division’s intelligence responsibilities were limited in two respects, however. It had no responsibility for radio intelligence, which fell under the cognizance of the Communications Division. Also, on oral instructions from the CNO, the division had no responsibility for evaluating or disseminating certain important aspects of military intelligence, such as preparing analyses of enemy intentions (i.e., developing the Enemy Intentions section of the Estimate of the Situation). ²⁴ Intelligence evaluation was a de facto prerogative that the War Plans Division jealously guarded in late 1941.²⁵

The Communications Division had control over naval communications by all means, including radio, telegraph, telephone, cable, and visual signals. It was also responsible for radio intelligence and security—its Communication Security Section was in charge of preparing and issuing codes, ciphers, and signal books for the Navy. In late 1941, however, the interception, decryption, and analysis of foreign radio communications were perhaps the most important of the Division’s responsibilities.

The Fleet Training Division embraced all phases of fleet training, including fleet exercises and gunnery and engineering competitions.²⁶ Its Tactics Section was headed by the assistant director of the division. Among its responsibilities were the preparation of general instructions for the conduct of fleet problems, special fleet tactical exercises, and fleet landing exercises. It also prepared and revised tactical publications issued by the CNO.²⁷

The Ship Movements Division was responsible for supervising and coordinating the movements of all naval craft and aircraft, except specially designated units exclusively for training and experimental purposes. It prepared and revised the Operating Force Plan and the Organization of the United States Naval Forces in accordance with the policy outlined by the War Plans Division and approved by the CNO.²⁸ It also provided coordination within OPNAV of the U.S. Fleet employment plans.²⁹

COMMANDER IN CHIEF, UNITED STATES FLEET

In late December 1941, Admiral Ernest J. King took over as Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet. Ernest King was a 1901 graduate of the Naval Academy who had stood fourth in his class of sixty-seven at graduation.³⁰ During most of World War I King served on the staff of Admiral Henry T. Mayo, second in command, Atlantic Fleet, as aide and squadron engineer officer.

During the interwar period, King, until then a surface officer, gained experience (though not great technical skill) in both submarines and naval aviation. After attending submarine school at New London, Connecticut, then Captain King commanded Submarine Division Eleven. During a subsequent tour as commander of the Submarine Base at New London, he headed the successful salvage of the submarine S 51 (SS 162), sunk off Block Island in September 1925. In January 1927, King reported to Pensacola, Florida for flight training. He was designated a naval aviator in late May of that year, following completion of a shortened course of instruction given to senior officers. During the next decade, King’s aviation assignments included tours as Assistant Chief and later Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics (BUAER), commanding officer of the carrier Lexington (CV 2), Commander Aircraft, Scouting Force, and Commander Aircraft, Battle Force. Following a tour on the General Board, which he thought would be his last active duty assignment, King was named Commander, Patrol Force U.S. Fleet in December 1940. This command was upgraded to the Atlantic Fleet in February 1941, and King fleeted up to full admiral as its commander in chief. He was serving in this position when named COMINCH.³¹

King’s personality proved a topic of discussion by seniors, contemporaries, and juniors alike throughout his career. An extremely intelligent and strong-willed individual, King did not suffer fools gladly and exhibited little tact when dealing with many seniors and all juniors. In addition, his short temper exhibited itself with some frequency when subordinates failed to carry out duties to his satisfaction. As historian Robert Love commented, On the job, he seemed always to be angry or annoyed.³²

King’s stern personality may have been developed intentionally when he was a junior officer.³³ However it had developed, though, King’s abrupt and demanding nature was a noticeable fixture of both the man and the officer long before he had risen to flag rank. Indeed, shortly after he took over as COMINCH, someone circulated a rumor that King had commented of himself, When they get into trouble, they send for the sons-of-bitches. The rumor was inaccurate, but King later acknowledged that he would have said it if he had thought of it.³⁴

COMINCH—DECEMBER 1941–MARCH 1942

On 14 December 1941, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox returned to Washington from a hurried trip to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, where he had obtained first-hand information on the damage that the Fleet had sustained in the Japanese attack. After inspecting the fleet, Knox concluded it was necessary to split the two command positions then held by Admiral Husband E. Kimmel—Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC) and Commander in Chief, United States Fleet (CINCUS)—into separate flag officer assignments.³⁵ Moreover, he was determined that Kimmel had to be relieved of all of his duties at Pearl. As Knox subsequently explained to the President, when he had questioned Kimmel about the Japanese attack, the admiral had admitted that he did not expect it and had taken no adequate measures to meet it if it came.³⁶ Clearly, allowing him to continue as the Navy’s senior commander afloat would create a bad precedent. Roosevelt agreed. Frank Knox accordingly summoned Ernest King to Washington on the 15th.

The following morning Secretary Knox met with the admiral and informed him that Rear Admiral Chester Nimitz, Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, would go out to Hawaii as the new Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, replacing Admiral Kimmel.³⁷ Knox then told King that he was to become the new Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet. After first demurring, King eventually accepted the assignment.³⁸

The admiral told the Secretary that his new assignment would require the resolution of certain matters. First, he believed that as CINCUS he would have to command the far-flung fleet from an office in Washington, rather than at sea as was the custom. Yet having both CINCUS and CNO physically present in the Navy Department building (Main Navy) could create added problems with the CNO over matters of jurisdiction and responsibility. King asked, therefore, that the parameters of his new position be formally defined. Knox agreed to this request and directed that two members of the General Board, Rear Admirals Walton R. Sexton and James Richardson, draft an executive order defining the position for the President to sign.³⁹

That afternoon, Knox, King, and Stark met with the President to discuss the change. During the meeting, King told FDR that there were several prerequisites for which he wanted the President’s approval before he would agree to take the job. One was a change in the acronym for Commander in Chief U.S. Fleet from CINCUS to COMINCH.⁴⁰ Another thing that King requested was command authority over the Navy’s technical Bureaus. Roosevelt agreed to the first request but demurred on the second, saying that such a change would necessitate redrafting federal law. He did promise, however, to replace any Bureau chief who proved uncooperative with King. It being the best offer he could get on this vital point, King accepted the President’s assurances.⁴¹

The next day King read the draft of the executive order that Sexton and Richardson had composed and, after making a few editorial changes, gave it his approval. ⁴² Signed by President Roosevelt on 18 December, Executive Order 8984 set forth the responsibilities of COMINCH as follows:

[The Commander in Chief U.S. Fleet] shall have supreme command of the operating forces comprising the several fleets of the United States Navy and the operating forces of the naval coastal frontier commands, and shall be directly responsible, under the general direction of the Secretary of the Navy, to the President of the United States therefore.⁴³

The COMINCH staff was charged with performing duties that included preparing and executing plans for current war operations, and conducting operational duties. Under this executive order, the Commander in Chief U.S. Fleet was to keep the Chief of Naval Operations informed of the logistic and other needs of the operating forces, while the CNO was to keep COMINCH informed of the extent to which the various needs could be met. Although the order gave the Commander in Chief U.S. Fleet the responsibility for the preparation of current war plans, it left the responsibility for developing long-range war plans in the hands of the Chief of Naval Operations.⁴⁴

Although the directive established a general demarcation between the duties of COMINCH and those of CNO, it did not specify which existing functions should be turned over to the new command. Accordingly, within a day or so, King dictated a memorandum to Admiral Stark that stated, I would appreciate your preparing a memorandum stating what functions and responsibilities the CNO should turn over to CominCh.⁴⁵

At noon on 30 December 1941, Admiral King formally took office as Commander in Chief, United States Fleet.⁴⁶ In a paper to the CNO written that same day, King listed the first senior members of his new staff. Rear Admiral Russell Willson, who had left a position as Superintendent of the Naval Academy to join King, was to be his chief of staff. The other three individuals named were OPNAV division heads given temporary additional duty with COMINCH.⁴⁷ King’s first memorandum as COMINCH also requested that for the period of transition he be able to carry on his duties through the appropriate agencies of OPNAV.⁴⁸ In a message sent the following day to the Fleet and Naval Coastal Frontier commanders, King informed them that until duly modified, current operating plans, allocations, dispositions, and command relationships continued in effect.⁴⁹

The first concrete action to transfer certain OPNAV offices to COMINCH’s control was taken by Admiral King on 15 January 1942. In a memorandum to the CNO of that date, King requested the transfer of the War Plans Division’s Sections B (Plans) and C (Latin American Defense), the Fleet Training Division, and the operational functions of Fleet and Coastal Frontier units as handled in the various sections of the Ship Movements Division. All personnel, records, and equipment in these sections were to be moved into COMINCH’s spaces. The memo further informed Admiral Stark that although no transfer of functions from OPNAV’s Naval Intelligence and Communication Divisions was then contemplated, the COMINCH staff would include a Fleet Intelligence Officer and Fleet Communication Officer.⁵⁰

Admiral Stark met with his senior staff officers on the morning of 17 January to discuss the issue of the reorganization of the Office of the CNO in the wake of King’s letter. Stark said that King had withdrawn his request to take over Section C of War Plans—the one that dealt with long-range planning and future naval collaboration with Latin American countries. A few minutes later, when the subject of whether some of the officers under COMINCH should be ordered as having additional duty under the CNO, Admiral Stark commented, I want all of Naval Operations to be available to Admiral King, and I hope that the reciprocal will also hold true.⁵¹ At one point the CNO remarked that since Admiral King was in charge of the operation of the fleet, he should be "kept as free of details as possible so that he can divert [sic] his entire energies to the Fleet."⁵²

At a follow-on meeting that afternoon, Stark met with a smaller group of officers to discuss a paper written by Rear Admiral Brainard, Director of the Ship Movements Division, on the issue of transferring many of the division’s sections to the Commander in Chief U.S. Fleet.⁵³ The officers were concerned that the changes would burden Admiral King with many details of purely an administrative character.⁵⁴ At the conclusion of this second meeting, Admiral Stark returned to the point he had made in the morning session, telling his staff officers, My one thought is to have Admiral King free to do nothing but operate the Fleet.⁵⁵

After carefully mulling over the comments and recommendations from the Directors of the War Plans and Ship Movements Divisions, Admiral Stark sent King a paper on 19 January setting forth his own views of the requested transfers. Stark agreed to the immediate transfer of the Fleet Training Division.⁵⁶ He desired certain modifications, however, to King’s proposal for the others. While he agreed to the transfer of Section B of the War Plans Division, he held back Section C.⁵⁷ With regard to the transfer of sections of the Ship Movements Division, Stark proved less amenable, raising objections to the request. [T]he important thing being the smooth and uninterrupted continuity of effort, the best answer is to leave these sections intact and for the operational matters involved to be handled by officers on your staff in close liaison with the respective sections. ⁵⁸

Although he disagreed with the CNO’s analysis of the proper division of administrative (CNO) and operational (COMINCH) functions, King agreed to Stark’s changes. In a 23 January memo to the CNO, King noted, however, that the operational functions of Section C of the War Plans Division and those of the five sections of the Ship Movements Division would be assumed by COMINCH.⁵⁹ To this end, King had already requested that officers be assigned to a new COMINCH Operations Division that would prepare operation plans and assign ships and aircraft to fleets and frontiers.⁶⁰

During January 1942, COMINCH Headquarters was organized into three divisions—a Plans Division, a Readiness Division, and an Operations Division. As new officers reported in, the headquarters rapidly increased in size. In mid-January, the staff consisted of thirty-one officers. By the end of that month, it had grown to some fifty-five officers.⁶¹ Nonetheless, this rapid rate of growth was not allowed to continue unabated. Admiral King was determined that the COMINCH organization should remain a small closely knit staff, and he actively worked to keep the expansion of personnel and development of additional staff functions under strict control.⁶²

As COMINCH headquarters began to operate in earnest, the hazy demarcation between CNO’s and COMINCH’s responsibilities conferred by Executive Order 8984 proved increasingly troublesome to both Stark and King.⁶³ Admiral King commented on this continuing, unsatisfactory situation several times during early 1942. On one occasion, during a meeting at the White House with Secretary Knox and the President, King pointed out that a definite command relationship between CNO and COMINCH should be established and that he was perfectly willing as COMINCH to be placed under the CNO. Following his comments, he was told by Roosevelt, Don’t worry. We’ll take care of that.⁶⁴

THE COMBINING OF THE POSITIONS OF COMINCH AND CNO

In early March 1942, FDR informed Admiral King that he had decided to appoint him as CNO in addition to his position as COMINCH.⁶⁵ King thereupon went to Admirals Sexton and Richardson and asked them to draft a new executive order for the President’s signature describing the duties of the combined office. Admiral King hurriedly approved this draft order the following morning, before it was handed to the President .⁶⁶

On Saturday morning, 7 March 1942, President Roosevelt summoned Admiral Stark to the White House. FDR informed Stark that King would be relieving him as CNO.⁶⁷ The admiral was told that he was going to London to be Commander U.S. Naval Forces, Europe (COMNAVEU), a long-dormant command that had last been held in 1917–1919 by Admiral William S. Sims.⁶⁸ Stark took the change with good grace and returned to his office to dictate his letter of resignation.⁶⁹ This memorandum, which Stark sent to Secretary Knox the same day for transmission to the President, stated simply, I hereby submit my resignation as Chief of Naval Operations, to become effective at such time as may be directed by the Secretary of the Navy, in order that I may assume new contemplated duties.⁷⁰

Despite the suddenness of the blow he had received, Admiral Stark—ever the optimist—maintained a positive mental attitude. Looking back on the command change two-and-a-half years later, Stark wrote to the President, You will remember the hearty laugh you gave me when we parted [when Stark left to take over his new assignment] and you remarked that I was too darned young to retire, and my comeback was, ‘That goes for both of us, Mr. President.’ ⁷¹

The news of Admiral King’s new appointment was given to the press on the afternoon of 9 March.⁷² Three days later, President Roosevelt signed the executive order combining the duties of CNO and COMINCH, and the following day King was formally nominated for the job.⁷³ Executive Order 9096 provided that the duties of the Commander in Chief, United States Fleet and the duties of the Chief of Naval Operations be combined and devolve upon one officer. This officer—given the title of Commander in Chief, United States Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations (COMINCH/CNO)—was to be the principal naval adviser to the President on the conduct of the war and the principal naval adviser and executive to the Secretary of the Navy on the conduct of the activities of the naval establishment. As COMINCH, he was to have supreme command of the operating forces comprising the several fleets, seagoing forces, and sea frontier forces of the United States Navy and was directly responsible, under the general direction of the Secretary of the Navy, to the President therefore. As CNO, he was charged, under the direction of the Secretary, with the preparation, readiness and logistic support of the operating forces . . . and with the coordination and direction of effort to this end of the bureaus and offices of the Navy Department except such offices (other than bureaus) as the Secretary of the Navy may specifically exempt. His duties as CNO were considered contributory to the discharge of his paramount duties as COMINCH.⁷⁴

The executive order’s most important contribution to the power of this new position was its wording that the CNO was charged with the coordination and direction of the war effort of the technical bureaus. This was something that Chiefs of Naval Operations had been trying to achieve, without success, for years. As historian Robert Albion remarked of it, That final pencilled phrase, ‘and direction, ’ gave a degree of authority within the Department that had been lacking ever since 1915 when Secretary Daniels had whittled down the original specifications for the Chief of Naval Operations.⁷⁵ Ironically, Admiral Richardson had added it to the draft order at the last minute.⁷⁶

Admiral King moved quickly to reorient the military responsibilities within the Navy Department to promote what he saw as increased efficiency. From his perspective this meant providing COMINCH/CNO with effective control over all aspects of the Department that he viewed as contributing directly to the Navy’s prosecution of the war. On 17 March 1942, King sent a memorandum to his senior staff that described his thinking on the reorganization and requested help and advice.

3. As I see it, the new organization will cut across existing lines of law and regulations, necessarily, if it is to be the effective machine that can be made to fit into the general picture.

4. To date, my ideas are to assemble appropriate activities in four grand divisions, namely,

Materiel

Personnel

Readiness

Operations.⁷⁷

The new Materiel Division was to be under Vice Admiral S. M. Robinson, in his existing capacity as Chief of Procurement and Material.⁷⁸ Rear Admiral Randall Jacobs was to head the Personnel Division. Vice Admiral Frederick J. Horne, the Vice Chief of Naval Operations whom King had inherited from Stark, was to be responsible for the Readiness Division. The Operations Division, however, was to be under the immediate control of King as COMINCH/CNO, with the assistance of Admiral Willson, his chief of staff.⁷⁹

One division clearly absent from this organizational scheme was a Plans Division. King had left this out intentionally because he believed that each of the divisions should have its own planning agency. Admiral King stated that the be-all and end-all of the proposed military organization was the conduct of operations by the seagoing forces. He stressed, therefore, "[T]he entire military set up [sic] is premised on operating requirements, initially and continuously."⁸⁰

Admiral King’s proposal received a variety of comments from those to whom the memo had been addressed—most positive, some negative. Admiral Robinson, the primary beneficiary of the proposed organizational change, found the idea satisfactory and, indeed, argued that each of the four divisions be given the responsibility of dealing directly with the various departmental bureaus and offices.⁸¹ On the other hand, Willson did not favor the proposed changes. He argued that the combined COMINCH/CNO organization had been in existence only a few days and recommended that the present organization be continued until its virtues and defects have been demonstrated by experience.⁸²

The first of King’s reorganization proposals to appear was the creation of the position of the Assistant Chief of Naval Operations (Air) on 15 May 1942. This billet, which was to be held as an additional duty by the Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics, was established to deal with all appropriate and duly assigned matters relating to naval aviation. The new Assistant Chief of Naval Operations (Air) was to be responsible directly to the Vice Chief of Naval Operations.⁸³ It proved to be only an opening salvo, however. A week later, on 22 May 1942, after some weeks of mulling over the various comments received and from them distilling a plan of action, King circulated an