Ryan-From my research, it was Admiral King that sidelined Admiral Fletcher. King did not see Fletcher as being as aggressive as King thought he should be and worried too much about logistics like fuel. Nimitz agreed to an extent, but Nimitz got a second chance after grounding his destroyer in 1908 or 1909, so Nimitz tended to give officers second chances, King did not.
Is there any official documentation available on how the Navy viewed the admirals of other navies (i.e. most respected allies, or more feared opponents)?
Thee bet in my opinion, was adrenal Cunningham operating in the Mediterranean throughout WW11 . Just look at the battles he took part in. He destroyed the French the Italian fleets and kept the German subs under control.
@@mikecase2372 I',m not the author but ... The only case I'm aware of is Admiral Yamamato. The US decided to use intelligence from code breaking to kill Yamamato even thought it would possibly reveal to the Japanese their codes were being read. The US felt depriving the Japanese of Yamamato's services would out weigh the loss of intelligence should the Japanese change their codes as a consequence of the attack. Halsey would be my choice. He did screw up at Leyte and with Halsey's typhoon, however he was also instrumental in cancelling two attacks that would have been very costly (Kavieng and Yap) and pushing forward the Leyte operation and skipping the Sarangani Bay operation.
Spruance has to be my favorite WWII Admiral. He believed that if he shouldn't be making a decision, then he wasn't going to; in short he hated micromanaging and preferred to delegate whenever it made sense to. He also believed in daily exercise and getting proper sleep; that sounds odd, but he was nearly religious in minding his own health, which meant he never made decisions while exhausted and his health didn't suffer due to the war. Before Midway, he was well known to be difficult for other Admirals to talk to, because he preferred to have one-on-one meetings while hiking, and he could easily hike 12km a day, even in his mid-fifties, something few other high-ranking Navy officers could match. One of my favorite stories about him comes from Ian W. Toll's excellent trilogy on the Pacific War. He was on the fleet flagship Maryland, due to meet with the captain on the bridge in a few minutes when a kamikaze hit her. The hit was amidships, nothing that seriously put the ship in danger, but it did cause some casualties and start some fires; the captain issued orders, damage control parties scrambled, and then he waited to meet with Spruance since the damage wasn't too serious. Only, Spruance didn't show up to the meeting time. Several minutes passed, and the captain started to panic a bit; Spruance should have been coming from aft, meaning he would have been about in the area of the kamikaze strike when it hit. He ordered a search party to find the Admiral, fearing the worst. Indeed, they found Admiral Spruance amidships, right about where the kamikaze hit... holding a fire hose, covered in soot but otherwise unscathed. Spruance had seen the kamikaze coming in and stayed back a bit (he actually might have been killed if he hadn't done that), and immediately jumped in to assist damage control. I think it is one of the most Spruance things to do: he wasn't in charge of the ship (that was the captain's job) so he had no orders for the ship; the kamikaze wasn't part of a mass airstrike, so he had no new orders for the fleet; even as the 5th Fleet's commanding officer, his priority right then was plain and simple: the fire right in front of him. So he picked up a fire hose and joined the damage control party with the ship's crew.
Spruance did not make the mistake at Leyte as Halsey made! Spruence was admiral to protect the carries untill Midway so he learnt the first to protect and to protect the Army and Marines as at Saipan! He postponed the second attact at GUam and Tinian, he concentrated the power at Saipan!
Spruance would not have made that big mistake at Leyte as Halsey made! Spruance turned around at Midway at night to awoid any Japanese battleship trap.
@@avenaoatAfter the Jap carriers were decimated, he made the decision not to pursue the retreating surface ships that had come with the carriers. Smart move, as he would have ran into Yamamoto's fleet which would have made short work of Spruance ragtag fleet of surface ships.
Admiral Willis Lee. Greatest gunnery admiral the navy ever had! The man knew everything about the 16”-45 and 50 rifles and proved it with USS Washington in a night battle at Savo island in the gunnery duel with IJN Kirishima.
8 14 “ rifles are nothing to laugh at ! most battleships had that armament and the IJN drilled heavily in night gunnery and torpedo actions. They even developed a lower flash propellant for their big guns.@@ahseaton8353
My favorite Admiral and he is not on the list is Admiral Lockwood. He commanded submarines in Australia and later out of Pearl Harbor. He was instrumental in solving the problems with the torpedoes and he develops many of the techniques that US Subs will use against Japan. I would rank him up with Nimitz, Spruance, and Halsey as the real leaders of the US Nany in WW2.
Lockwood was one of our finest flag officers in WWII. Where Ryan is off a bit in his analysis is where he doesn't realize that by the time of the Pacific War, battleships (even the IOWA class commissioned during the war) were already obsolete. Aircraft carriers and submarines were the U.S. Navy's best combatant ships in WWII. Andy McKane, Maunaloa, HI.
As much as the Carriers and their admirals take the spotlight, it was the Silent Service that absolutely crushed the Empire of Japan, Lockwood was the architect of that victory. Armchair generals(admirals) talk strategy, but the winners understood logistics. Lockwood and the Submarines of the US Pacific Fleet won the war in the Pacific, by strangling Japan's foodstuffs and draining all the oil from its planes, tanks and warships. Of course, Nimitz was a submariner himself... I get the distinct impression, the board didn't really consider any of the submariners that closely!
His counterpart in SW Pacific, Ralph Christie, was opposite; couldn’t imagine the torpedo he developed had design flaws. But, to his credit, he had to put up with Dugout Doug MacArthur.
Fletcher without a doubt is the most underrated and under appreciated admiral of the Pacific Theater. He was in command during those desperate battles at Coral Sea, Midway and Eastern Solomons when the Japanese Navy was at its zenith and he never lost.
Amen!!! He also literally formed US carrier doctrine as it had never been used to that point. So you cannot use that against him at Coral Sea. Not only did he win (technically Coral Sea was a W) all three engagements. He did that with the deck stacked against him. The IJN was unbeatable to that point. He lost 2 carriers compared to taking 4 Fleet and 2 light IJN carriers. And the Yorktown was not even his fault! A 6:1 exchange rate is fantastic. Sick of Turners blaming at Guadalcanal, and if only selecting Spruance for praise at Midway.
Fletcher was a helluvan admiral. He got those precious pair of aircraft carriers out of harm's way immediately after the Guadalcanal invasion. The US Marines were pissed he left so soon, but Fletcher preserved America's modest carrier forces, which went on to fight in many more desperate engagements that fall. It was the earliest phase of the Pacific War, when America was most vulnerable. Nobody much liked what he did then. But Bully for Fletcher.
@@johnLee-bb2do King loved the Lexington. So when it sank at Coral, he took it personally and held it against Fletch. I heard he also thought Fletcher wasn’t aggressive enough which is laughable. Fletcher was fighting uphill and still managed to stop the IJN (with help from HYPO) until we could get more resources.
I feel that Chester Nimitz was the best military officer ever produced by our country. He did not make mistakes. Ray Spruance was quiet and competent... And did not have a huge ego. Lee probably would have been more at home in a more modern U.S. Navy as he was a technician and grasped the importance of radar more than most of his peers. Nimitz was also very good at managing people, and placing them in the right jobs.
I had never thought in terms of "best US officer ever" but yeah. If I had to pick one commander from all of US history to run a war, it would be Nimitz.
Nimitz did not make mistakes? As a young officer he grounded his ship. In todays navy he would have never commanded anything more significant than a garbage scow after that.
@@BrianZinchuk That is probably what is wrong with the modern navy today. Making one mistake like grounding a ship is not something that determines you could not later become an excellent fleet or fleet group commander. Some people may not be excellent in direct combat but may be much better in a higher level of operation. Halsey was definitely one of the best combat commanders in the navy ever, but he was also sometimes reckless which could have been a problem at the time should he have been CINCPAC at the time instead of Nimitz.
Spruance, as he consistently remembered what the actual mission was, and carried it out at Midway and the Marianas. In both cases, resisting the temptation to pursue a defeated, but still dangerous foe was the sort of thing Halsey did at Leyte Gulf.
@@tomhalla426 I think Halsey is bashed too much by some. One book - The Admirals - Walter Borneman- points out Halsey had missed all the prior significant Carrier battles- He did successfully carry out the Doolittle Raid. yes he pursued a Foe - not really dangerous (did Halsey know that) Halsey also probably did not think of Sibuyan Sea or Suriago Straight as a victory due to lack of Japanese Aircraft Carriers there (compare think Coral Sea, Midway, or Marianas)
@@wfoj21 The primary mission at Leyte Gulf was to cover the invasion. Once the Allies had a base in the Philippines, the Imperial Japanese Navy would be cut off from its fuel supply in Malaya. Chasing off after the decoy carriers left the landing force uncovered, except for berserk defense by Taffy 3. It would have been much worse if the Japanese did not withdraw, and went after the troopships.
@@wfoj21that kind of thinking was shared by Halsey, which is why he's bashed. Chasing legends, trying to get "his turn at glory"... Whatever. His job was too guard the troops.
Halsey did know that the Japanese carriers at Leyte were a faint. His intelligence officers told him this. Halsey should have been relieved after Leyte but he went on to kill lots more American sailors with his ego and incompetence. Plus he wasn’t really an airman. He learned to fly late in his career and was a terrible pilot.
I'm going to cast my vote for Admiral Norman Scott. He took a complacent, peace-time-minded force and was really one of the first ones to really slap some sense into his people prior to his engagements at Guadalcanal. Offset gunnery exercises, light discipline, damage control drills, he made the most successful early effort to put his sailors into a full wartime mentality. And he took an inexperienced force against an arguably superior foe at Cape Esperance and brought home a tarnished "W" in that engagement. If he'd been in charge at the next Guadalcanal engagement instead of Callahan, I think the US would have performed better.
They both from what i understand were still stuck in prewar navy doctrine, and underestimated the japanese fleet, especially when it came to night fighting, can't remember which one, but he didn't belive in radar, and positioned his radar equipped destroyers where they were not very effective, but one thing a lot of people forget, even for all their flaws in fighting the battle, they did the job assigned to them, they blunted the attacks on Guadalcanal against the IJN
Scott already had a successful night engagement against the Japanese. He at least had combat experience where Callaghan hadn’t yet. My dad was on the Atlanta when she was lost with Scott aboard.
Taking a sniper with Olympic Gold in his trophy case and giving him nine 16" guns as his rifle was one of the finest decisions the US Navy made during WW II. Making him an admiral? A masterstroke. Admiral Ching Lee.
Given the enormous success of the submarine war in the Pacific, the lack of submariners jumps out. Admiral Charles Lockwood was effective and I believe had a major impact on the outcome of the war.
Very few Admiral Billets for submariners. Fleet boats were skippered by Lt’s and LCdr’s. Compare that to the heavier rank structure of a cruiser, battleship, or officers serving on CV’s. Advancement for submarine officers was limited
Seconded. “Uncle Charlie” Lockwood’s name was the one I kept waiting to hear, and; after Spruance; was the biggest omission. The man (and his wife) are buried alongside Nimitz, Spruance, Turner, and their wives. Which is probably a much higher honor than making a Buzzfeed-style list from early in the war.
Frank Jack Fletcher. Lee is pretty close to First. Lee was excellent. Took out a battleship.But Fletcher took out 6 Japanese carriers and was cautious when he had to be.
There is a lot of parallels between this list and that of the Union Generals in the Civil War, no one in 1861 would have picked, Grant, Sherman and Sheriden to be the ones to rise to greatness. There is a difference between what makes a great peacetime Admiral/General and a what makes a great Wartime one.
For admirals the difference between war and peace is great. In war time, an admiral's job is to put a significant chunk of an enemy nation's GNP into Davy Jone's Locker without risking too much of his own country's. In peace time, those ships ARE a significant chunk of the country's GNP and NOTHING must be allowed to damage them. Different mind sets. FDR had been Assistant Secretary of the Navy in World War I and was well aware of this, so he was determined not be like Lincoln during the Civil War when it came to the Navy.
Believe it or not, Farragut wasn't that _well known_ either before the war... 👀👀(and this is the man that made the US Navy *finally* made the Admiral rank(!)) Good thing Welles eventually trusted him!
This is very astute. My favorite fact about Nimitz is that he went along with Rochefort's assessment, based upon just hints in the broken code, that Midway would be the point of attack. Nimitz was under great pressure and had only fragmentary evidence. In peacetime you can demand more evidence and it doesn't make sense to fail to accumulate as much as possible before making a critical judgment. But in war that is not true. If circumstances don't give you much to go on or much time, that is regrettable, but you have to make the best of what you have, and Nimitz did that and gambled heavily on his judgment -- just what he should have done. That's a quality that is difficult to assess in peacetime. It is a quality that Grant had. Lincoln said that he liked Grant because "he fights" -- meaning that Grant was willing to act rather than wait around when action was called for. That is just what Nimitz did. (The guy I wish I could get to know was a Marine, General Holland M. (Howlin' Mad) Smith. I am not saying that he was right all the time but rather that he sounds like he was really worth knowing.)
Re: "There is a difference between what makes a great peacetime Admiral/General and a what makes a great Wartime one." You're certainly got that right! During peacetime, the navy was a relatively small world especially where the senior officers were concerned, and cronyism was rampant. Officers who'd attended Annapolis protected one another and formed sort of an informal club, even though there were some very gifted individuals who entered the officer corps via other means, such as OCS or as mustangs, enlisted men who became officers. Regulars tended to treat other regulars or "professionals" differently than reservists who were considered "amateurs" or "part-timers." That said, the professional cadre of officers and men who were in the navy as their career, formed the nucleus of the wartime force, and once the dead wood was identified, the senior officers who couldn't hack it, the navy did what had to be done to get the right men into the slots where they could do the most good. But it often... took losses of men and battles for that to be revealed. Who could function under stress and who could not.
Of course Ryan mentioned Nimitz in the video, but it is amazing that Nimitz, equaled as a large-scale chess master only by Yamamoto (who, of course, could not have made the list despite being a Harvard graduate who had spent quite a bit of time in the US) wasn't on here. I'm in complete agreement with all the praise for Admiral Willis Lee, the Navy's best shot. I'd put him up against any sniper in ANY force in the war, especially because of his versatility. He was a seven-time Olympic medalist in shooting events ranging down to.22 caliber, then medaled in 16-inch Naval Rifle, Night shooting off Guadalcanal) Spruance is another obvious omission, but for sheer guts, how about Clifton Sprague? Caught with a little task force of escort carriers, destroyers and destroyer escorts against Kurita's powerful First Mobile Force, he ENGAGED THE YAMATO (knowing full well what she was - they didn't know the exact spec, but knew "superbattleship larger than an Iowa") and her MANY escorts, fighting so bravely that Kurita withdrew...
@@christianvalentin5344 They took some senior captains like Mitscher and Callaghan, but Sprague was commanding an converted Cargo Ship/seaplane tender just promoted to Captain in January of 1942, probably one of the most junior captains in the fleet.
Yamamoto I don't see so much as a chess player, but a gambler/poker player, (which he actually was a habitual player of, having learned it at Harvard when earning an advanced degree in economics while IJN Naval Attaché to US in 1920s, he also became very fluent in English). He was the bold gambler who took big risks (Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, Midway) win, lose, or draw. What he also was, was a great studier of detail, he saw things in military stratagem other would blow off. And employed them to great effect
@@christianvalentin5344For that matter, Spruance also wasn’t an admiral until right before Midway. He was a cruiser captain hand picked by Halsey to replace him while he was hospitalized with shingles.
I would rate Admiral Lee much higher, probably in that second set of admirals. Not only was he an excellent battleship admiral and an outstanding gunnery expert, but he made enormous contributions on the logistics side of things. It’s something that won’t go in the popular history books, but without it the Navy would have had a much more difficult time protecting their fleets.
I'd highly recommend the book "The Never-Ending Challenge of Engineering: Admiral H.G. Rickover in His Own Words" to people, it's incredibly thought provoking and offers insight way beyond the expected.
Probably one of the most important US Navy officers from an engineering perspective, but not a good overall strategic leader. He didn't have the temperament required to lead large teams... but he knew it. He pushed nuclear power, but also made a lot of mistakes organizationally. He was not good as a leader, and often did not recognize talent well. Extremely good at building a nuclear navy... but maybe not the best at actually leading elements of it.
Top man has to be Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood, commander of US submarines in WWII. I would venture to say he was the one that set the foundations of what the Silent Service is today, and the huge success that was the US submarine force in WWII. I always thought Nimitz's greatest ability was to put the right people in the right positions. It always seems like the Navy of WWII always did things better than than any other point in history, but at the same time it had never been tested like it was in WWII, so there is that.
I had him in mind too. If you read memoirs by sub commanders like O'Kane and Fluckey, they speak well of him. And he was the first of the brass willing to accept that the Mk 14 might be flawed, and then test it. I do wonder, though, if his late war foray into the Sea of Japan with boats using the mine-detecting sonar might have been high risk, low reward.
@BryceKant - Re: "I always thought Nimitz's greatest ability was to put the right people in the right positions." Admiral Nimitz excelled as a leader of leaders, in much the same way General Dwight Eisenhower excelled as a "general's general." Neither man, through no fault of his own, was to carve a legendary career as a combat commander during the Second World War, a "fighting admiral" as they were called. Instead, each man attained greatness at the strategic and operational levels, and also by being able to navigate the rocks and shoals of high-level politics, both within the military and in Washington, D.C. Another similar figure who comes to mind is General George C. Marshal. Charles Lockwood deserves a great deal more credit and acclaim for his wartime accomplishments than he generally receives, even today. The "silent service" broke the back of Japan's maritime logistics, and once Japan lost the ability to supply the war effort she was defeated. It was only a matter of time by then. An officer not mentioned in the video (unless I somehow missed it) was Vice-Admiral Charles "Swede" Momsen, who figured greatly in the success of the submarine service during the war. He was the single individual most-responsible for pinpointing and fixing the problems the navy had with its torpedoes, to name one important accomplishment. Another was his use and adaptation of "wolf pack" tactics similar to those used by the Germans in the North Atlantic, to the U.S. submarine service. Momsen and his skippers modified the methods to work for them and they bore fruit almost immediately in increased productivity and greater enemy shipping tonnage accounted for by his officers and men.
In my opinion given the monumental tasks the Construction battalions (SeaBees) pulled off during WWII (things like repairing Enterprise while underway following battle of Santa Cruz so she could take part in the Solomon Island battles at Guadalcanal) my favorite and most important Admiral of WWII is Admiral Ben Moreell father of the Seabees..
I was an Army officer in Vietnam, but because my father was a naval aviator in the Pacific, I waded through all 15 volumes of The History of United States Naval Operations in World War II while a student at Brown. Here are my votes for admirals: 1. Nimitz was a genius in logistics and the war in the Pacific was ultimately won through logistics. Neither carriers or battleships are worth much without fuel and ordinance. Ask the Japanese. 2. Spruance, though not an aviator, was the finest carrier admiral in history. The Pacific was a carrier war. 3. Halsey was the most aggressive admiral at a time when action was necessary for national morale. Nimitz' mastery of logistics kept Halsey from paying too great a price for his lack of prudence. As a team, they turned out to be unbeatable.
Halsey's aggression is all well and good, but there are 2 instances where his lack of prudence should have led to court-martials. Not to mention his failure to protect forces landing in the battle of Leyte Gulf, and chasing after a biteless Japanese carrier force. Which necessitated extraordinarily heroic actions by undersized and outgunned destroyers and escort carriers at that battle. Nimitz and the whole asked where was Halsey? No fan of Halsey.
@@xtbum3339 Thanks for your comment. I'm very familiar with the Battle off Samar. My father was a TBM pilot in Taffy 3. I did refer to Halsey's lack of prudence, which is always a two-edged sword. Having led troops in combat myself, I understand both the risks and rewards of aggressive leadership. In the fog of war, no one is perfect. Sadly, a leader must operate without perfect situational awareness. Sometimes you make mistakes. As a carrier admiral, maybe Halsey was a bit too fixated on destroying the enemy's already toothless aircraft carriers. No one is perfect, but action and initiative are often crucial to winning battles and wars. Halsey got his fifth star because he was right more often than he was wrong, at a time when the Navy desperately needed to seize and hold the initiative.
Wikipedia is just like any other encyclopedia. Its only for quick reference, and reports, if you're in grade school. If you're in college, you better only use it to look at the articles bibliography, to, hopefully, get some real references. The people who give Wikipedia a bad rap, really don't understand the purpose of an encyclopedia and probably have a limited education. I still have physical copies of 1991 Encyclopedia Britannica and 1960 Compton's. I can easily find glaring mistakes in both, and not because they're dated, but would still be viewed as mistakes, when printed. I like the Compton's because it was printed soon after the Air Force had some really cool planes, especially those that never got past the experimental state. And with cool color photos !
Wiki is useful for uncontroversial topics, and as a source of sources. The naval warfare in the pacific is thankfully largely uncontroversial, so Wiki is a bit better on that topic.
I worked on a restoration of home. The owner was a a Mr. Kalbfus. I was sufficiently knowedgable in US Naval History to ask if he was related to the Admiral. He informed me that he was the Admiral’s grandson.
"Dutch" Kalbfus was named as the first director of the Office of Naval History in 1944. The very next day, the same man, SecNav James V. Forrestal, named Kalbfus as one of the 3 flag officer members of the Navy Court of Inquiry into P.H. I very much admire Kalbfus, Andrwes and Murfin. Thank you for your interest in naval history. Andy McKane, Maunaloa, HI.
I applaud Nimitz for not rushing into battle in the first several months, but giving the carriers small learning tasks, raiding Japanese bases, dashing hither and thither, while the pilots and commanders got their feet wet. I applaud Frank Jack Fletcher for walking that fine line between rash and cautious, and for giving Spruance command at Midway. He did not let his ego run wild. I applaud Spruance for not running wild like Halsey, for knowing his duty and not letting his ego run wild at the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.
Especially when you consider he was under enormous pressure from King to do something (to distract from the disastrous losses shipping was taking along the east coast.)
I'm quoting his wiki page below for why Spruance is one of my favorite combat leaders of all time. This, to me, sums up his humility and self-awareness, which are two impressive traits for leaders that you don't often see. He was a guy who got things done, full-stop: "His achievements in the navy were well known, but himself much less. He did not discuss his private life, feelings, prejudices, hopes or fears, except with his family and his closest friends. He was modest and candid about himself. "When I look at myself objectively," he wrote in retirement, "I think that what success I may have achieved through life is largely due to the fact that I am a good judge of men. I am lazy, and I never have done things myself that I could get someone to do for me. I can thank heredity for a sound constitution, and myself for taking care of that constitution." About his intellect he was equally unpretentious: "Some people believe that when I am quiet that I am thinking some deep and important thoughts, when the fact is that I am thinking of nothing at all. My mind is blank."[28]" And this is the guy who many of his contemporaries referred to as 'electric brain'
Tip Merrill, he was teaching at Tulane University, first assigned to Captain the Indiana, then promoted to Rear Admiral and commanded a cruiser/destroyer task force and did substantial naval work in the Solomon Islands and won the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay against a superior Japanese force.
As in every military history, it's the battle commanders who are remembered and honored. Behind the scenes, however, their ability to do their jobs is made possible by the leaders in logistics. You can't fight if you don't have the personnel, equipment, and supplies. Especially with the distances between the US and Europe and to venues in the far reaches of the Pacific, the leaders who organized the convoys and their support deserve as much recognition as the battle commanders
VADM Lee wins every time for me! He was probably the greatest battleship admiral there ever was, in any country every I think the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot is the best example of his brilliance. He could have answered a question that's been on the minds of people since the Iowa's hit the water, who would win, a Yamato or an Iowa? He had the chance and while his job was to escort Mitscher, and Lee had the opportunity to press for an engagement, he knew what was more important, the Carriers He chose to not engage because keeping the carriers safe was more important than answering a great historical what if. Granted he was also aware that numbers weren't on his side, but I think it speaks a lot of him to not choose to take the battle Second place would go to Nimitz, then Burke, then it's a toss up between Cunningham and Mitscher. Halsey is towards the bottom. Typhoon Cobra and the Battle of Samar are unforgivable imo mistakes, especially when Halsey didn't let Lee Steam south when he was directly asked for by Taffy 3.
Lee was certainly right at Philippines Sea to avoid heading west the first night, not because he was uncertain about taking on the Mobile Fleet's battle line, but because it would have been at night, and even with radar he did not want to run his ships into a horde of Long Lances in the dark. On the other hand, he certainly would have loved to have received the order to form Task Force 34 off Samar and do the Nelson routine that almost every admiral of his time dreamed about. Check out Drachinifel's "Battle of Samar--What if TF34 was there?" for a great presentation of how that might have come out.
Halsey was impulsive. While he was the right call to replace Ghormley when the Guadalcanal campaign was not doing well he certainly should have been replaced after the typhoon incidents.
Ching Lee - He was a technical genius but meek enough to work on numerous shore billets that ultimately improved the Navy's entire fighting ability. As an Admiral he did not trod on the captain whose ship he rode, but rather formed a tight working relationship with the CO and his entire command.
Favorite is probably Spruance. He was the guy who had an uncanny ability to see the big picture. And was completely unflappable. But by the same token I think Spruance and Halsey are best viewed as a matched set. They each brought what the other lacked. I think Halsey gets a little too worked over by modern historians. AT the time this list was made, he was really the only one showing constant success. Halsey may not have been great in the late war as it was less a war of battles and more one of logistics. But he was the thundering figurehead that AMerica needed. And Nimitz mostly managed him well. We'll agree to disagree on Kelly Turner. He was a badly deteriorating alcoholic that everyone around him knew. But he also was a virtuoso at the art of Amphibious Operations. He built what was probably the US Navy's greatest weapon of the war. It's ability to stage an amphibious landing, and succeed every single time. Turner was the thing that terrified the Japanese Admirals in Tokyo more than anything else. Because nothing they could do could seem to even slow down his landings. Nothing would hold them back. Mitcher is impressive for how much he turned around after his first time at bat aboard the Hornet. he became the foundation of American Carrier Doctrine. Building how Carriers operated together in ways never before seen. Japan demonstrated to the world the Carrier as the most powerful strike weapon. But it was still a raiding weapon. Mitcher took that and turned it into something else. Something new. Carriers were now the point of Power Projection. Mitchers Carriers no longer raided. They sailed up and held station until the target was eliminated. No more gone by nightfall. The Carrier was now the center nexus of Naval Power. Where the Carrier went the Power went. Where the Carriers stayed the Power stayed. ANd the Carriers now went where they wanted. I will also give a shoutout to Ingersoll. He did a magnificent if less sexy job in the Atlantic. Like Nimitz and Spruance he understood what the actual critical tasks and goals were, Not what the flashy things people wanted to see. At Saipan Spruance almost alone realized that Saipan, Tinian and Guam were the mission. They were the most important pieces of real estate in the Pacific. From them Japan would be defeated (The Japanese admiralty was in agreement with him on that analysis). Chasing down the Japanese Carriers was less important than securing those islands so the B-29's could start flying. Ingersol understood that the ATlantic was all about the Merchant shipping and hunting down the U-Boats.
My father served as a signalman on the USS Hornet (CV 12), which was from time to time flagship. One of his jobs was a plotter in the Combat Information Center. He met Halsey and Mark Mitchener as well as Clark. He said Halsey was an ass, Mitchener was OK, and Clark a genuinely nice guy.
In my opinion, Admirals Spruance and Lee are my favorites. Lee did much to improve gunnery in all ships. I think Frank Jack Fletcher is underappreciated for his performance early in the war. With very limited resources he brought war to the enemy and conserved his forces.
Yes, especially to Frank 'Jack' Fletcher. The soliloquy for Cpt. Queeq in "The Caine Mutiny" comes to mind: that he was out there at the dirty end, when there was NOTHING to hand with which to fight the enemy, nothing but ships commanded by the Naval Officers like (insert Fletcher's name here) who only knew that their country expected them to do their very best. The man who wrote that scene knew something of "The Price of Admiralty". ref. John Keegan.
Pretty hard to have Admirals relieved of duty. Once in the Admirals club relatively safe. Adm Baker's promotion was put on hold to Rear Admiral (upper half) over his handling of the USS Teddy Roosevelt covid 19 handling. I see he is now retired. The Seventh Fleet's commanding admiral was relieved for having too many DDGs running into ships around Japan. Many ship captains get relieved due to loss of command confidence. Probably 10 -12 COs a year. My best picks: 1 Nimitz, 2 Spruance, 3 Lee, 4 Oldendorf, 5 Fletcher, 6 Mitscher. And yes I'm a retired CWO3.
Removing a captain is an operational decision, an admiral a political one. Also it involves admitting you were wrong to give them the command in the first place. Far easier to just shuffle them off on gardening leave, the same way companies do with people too senior for it to be allowed to admit you put in a board position.
My dad was the chief pilot to Admirals Kirk, Gromley and King. We had a five-star officer flag mounted in glass in our living room. It was the flag that the pilots put in a mount outside the plane after landing. It was given to a local VFW and hasn't been seen since.
FDR actually FIRED Richardson (my personal hero admiral of the war) in January '41 for resisting Roosevelt's demand to keep the Pacific fleet permanently at Pearl. He took the hit, which is why he's tops on my list. FDR then went shopping for a more compliant Admiral who would gladly take his 4th star and golf clubs to Oahu. I've always been amazed that nobody, in '41 or since, has made the point that if Richardson had prevailed, Yamamoto would have had no target to attack on Dec. 7th. But I find it strange that Richardson, after being sacked -- and testifying negatively at the Pearl atack hearings, would still have been asked to join the panel a year later. I'm betting Roosevelt never got word of this...
Chester Nimitz was considered for CINCPAC at this point, but declined, stating that he was not senior enough. Therefore, Husband Kimell was chosen, and we all know the story from there..
As bad as Pearl harbor was for US Fleet, many historians have pointed out that attack was the biggest mistake Japan had made. Pearl Harbor basically unified the whole country against the Axis power. And in destroying almost all of the standard battleships, INJ made the flattops the queen of naval battlefield. So instead of making more Washingtons, South Dakortas or Iowas, USN switched gear and made a shitload of CV, CVL and CVE. In a strange way by firing Richardson and replacing him with Kimmel, FDR inadvertently started the sequence of events that ended up in the surrender of Japan on the deck of Missouri.
To be fair, if the attack on Pearl Harbor never happened, Japan might have won the war. The American people were willing to fight until an unconditional surrender in the name of Pearl Harbor, but perhaps not so in the name of Manila.
Having read Spruance's biography "The Quiet Warrior", I have to say he is my favorite admiral. Just like Scipio Africanus is my favorite general. Both were highly competent, serious, conscientious, bound by duty, and totally unpretentious.
I noticed that omission as well. In 1942 he was in command of the submarines operating out of Fremantle (Perth) Australia, though. These boats, at first, were some of the remnants of the former Asiatic Fleet. Lockwood was in command there from May through December 1942. Fremantle was overshadowed by Pearl harbor.
Depends. I think Spruance was the best field admiral of WWII hands down in terms of his effectiveness all around. Halsey was the man we needed in the South Pacific in ‘42 and ‘43 when what we needed most was a morale boost and someone to clean up Gormley’s mess. Lee was the best man to command fast battleships because he understood the new tech and was a master marksman himself. Richmond Kelly Turner was a master Logistician and was in charge of that almost from start to finish, so even though there were other people who potentially could have done the job he understood the depth of the job better than anyone else by doing it the longest. It’s hard to simplify this question down to simply “the best admiral” as they all had different duties and strengths.
Scott comes to mind but one of the better leader of ships into combat was only a Commodore, Arleigh Burke. His aggression and development of night training greatly improved US naval doctrine and made it a much more effective power. I know he didn't make Admiral till after the war, but deserves mention with those names.
I am going to exclude Nimitz and King because they fought the war at the strategic level. #1 is Spruance. He built his campaigns to support the overall joint mission objectives. Halsey did the same for the Guadalcanal campaign and promptly forgot it when moved to the Central Pacific. Had he been sent to Washington at the end of the Guadalcanal campaign he would still rated highly today. We regard Willis Lee so highly because of the Washington-Kirishima fight. He had no other major engagements before or after. He was a technical expert.
As much as I admire Admiral Lee, I think you are right as he only had one battle to be unleashed. What could have taken place if Task Force 34 had been released to San Bernardino Strait.
One of the things I never understood about the Guadalcanal campaign is how they constantly rotated admirals in command with the various task forces there. It seems to me like the few guys who knew how to fight in those conditions, like Lee (or even Scott/Callaghan, had they lived) never really had a chance to demonstrate and teach their comrades how to fight those battles. The rotating leadership meant that the same mistakes kept getting made over and over again. Makes you wonder why they didn't start using an area command approach instead of a task force command approach, especially in those early days when only cruisers and destroyers were available so the ship capabilities wouldn't have been that different for each group.
Admiral Lee. A superb tactician who won the battle that decided the Guadalcanal Campaign. He pressed repeatedly for the fast battle line to train as a unit for surface action instead of being welded to the carriers, but was refused time to do so by both Halsey and Spruance. He also recommended to Halsey that the percentage of AP shells carried by the the new and old battle lines be increased before the Philippines invasion, again vetoed by Halsey.
Fascinating article! The remark about Oldendorf is humorously semi-scathing ("How could any commander NOT have won Surigao Strait"!) I am intrigued by finding out about Hustvedt, it would definitely be interesting to find out ore about him in the future.
"How any commander could have lost it..." Oldendorf had many advantages and he took "advantage" of all of them. History is full of commanders who could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.. Kurita being one of them.
Capt Hustvedt was the commissioning CO for North Carolina (BB-55) in April 1941. He was relieved by Capt Badger, also on this list. They are both in my Dad’s WWII NC cruise book. NC was evidently a choice assignment at that time.
Fletcher did seem pretty good, sadly hampered by circumstance. He was the first Admiral to lead actual carrier battles on the American side, so he slammed face-first into a steep learning curve.
I have a lot of respect for Frank Fletcher on the list. He got sacked in late 1942 and sent to a backwater, but the man fought the several critical Carrier Duels in 1942 and the Japanese came out bloody without achieving the results they wanted. Fletcher fought the Japanese at Coral Sea, Midway, and Eastern Solomons, all in 1942 when the Imperial Japanese Navy was at the peak of its power and momentum. In 1942 the US Navy did not have the industrial tidal wave of the Essex-class. That would come about as 1943 went on, so in 1942 the USN had to make do with a rival in the Pacific that was very powerful. He checked the IJN at Coral Sea, preventing them from doing the amphibious assault against Port Moresby. Because of the IJN's failure, the army had to slog through absolutely *nasty* mountainous, jungle terrain. Midway we all know about. Eastern Solomons was a major Carrier Duel in the long Guadalcanal Campaign. The IJN came out to play in significant strength. It was a close American victory. The IJN suffer heavy aircraft losses, Enterprise was heavily damaged. More importantly the IJN could not get the victory it wanted to gain naval superiority. Because of this failure the Japanese had to do a terrible, prolonged, high attrition reinforcement effort to bring supplies and troops to Guadalcanal at high cost to themselves. RAdm Tanaka called Guadalcanal a "black hole" of men and ships because of that. But Fletcher was criticized for not being aggressive enough to get a more conclusive victory. So he got relieved. People wanted Fletcher to be more aggressive but Enterprise was already heavily damaged. If the Japanese did a few more right decisions, Enterprise would have easily been sunk. Fletcher had already gotten the results the USN needed and prevented the loss of any of his Aircraft Carriers, which the USN did not have a lot of at this point in WWII. He did the right thing. There have only been 5 Carrier Duels by all sides in WWII: Coral Sea, Midway, Eastern Solomons, Santa Cruz Islands, and Philippine Sea. 4 of the 5 were all done in 1942. Of those 4, Fletcher was there, fighting the Japanese navy at the peak of their power.
I feel like the counterculture has come down a bit too hard on Halsey recently. He wasn't perfect, but he was an extremely successful at both wearing down the IJN through raids and aggressive tactics, and at picking the right people for the job, with Spruance being the most shining example. I'd argue that those 2 things are among the most important traits for a high level admiral, and Halsey was good at both. Many people tend to look only at major battles like Santa Cruz Islands and the mediocre results there, but forget everything else that was going on. Enterprise didn't get her absurd kill count just from Midway.
When he reversed course away from the Japanese at Cape Engano, Halsey later said that he turned his back on the opportunity which he had dreamed of since his days as a cadet.
How can anyone not gravitate to a man with such a way with words? I'm speaking of Halsey's famous offer to share the Pacific Ocean with the Japanese... Halsey quipped, "we get the top, they get the bottom." In wartime, that's the sort of spirit you need.
It's not counterculture... it's just clarity with time. Halsey was far more a better naval officer than bad one, but he really wasn't meant to command at the level he did. He didn't have the intelligence or conscientiousness to. Spruance had a much more fitting temperament for higher command. This isn't new either... Nimitz saw this, especially after Halsey sailed into a typhoon, but realized that relieving him that late in the war would have done nothing to move the war effort further. If Halsey wasn't on the fleet rotation schedule with Spruance, and one had to be chosen to lead the other, Spruance probably would have been chosen. Halsey possessed a tremendous fighting attitude which serves extremely well at ship/division level... but there is a limit to that. When you look at Eisenhower, Nimitz, Spruance, Marshall... their calmer temperaments are much better fits for strategic command.
This was fascinating. Sometimes in command positions you make the wrong decisions, based on the information at hand. Being able to view things from outside can make you a better officer in other positions, or prepare you better for further frontline duties. I've seen it happen in my own career. Thanks Ryan!
He is an interesting what if, but I'm afraid it might have been boring. He was just high enough rank they probably wouldn't have put him in command of any of the destroyer forces, so honestly if he'd survived the first night battle of Guadalcanal, that might have been his last significant action. By all accounts he clearly learned from Cape Esperance, so that knowledge would likely have been valuable, but I'm not sure he would have led any further fights; just a bit too high rank for the small destroyer engagements, while not high enough to command over Lee (probably for the best in that one case). He definitely died too young though.
In case you haven't noticed, it's really not all that uncommon for CO's to be relieved of command these days. Seems to happen a hell of a lot more than it did when I served.
COs of ships are being relieved, and Regimental, Brigade level commanders are being removed for "loss of confidence in their command," a lot of the Field Grade officers are being removed from various commands, and sometimes with their XO and Senior Enlisted Advisor. I see some but not many flag and general officer removals, but it has to be really, really severe.
My vote would be Nimitz first, Lockwood second, then Spruance. Nimitz was the only theater commander that none of his subordinates ever criticized after the war in their memoirs. Quiet, effective leadership.
The one that I despise is Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner. His sloppy command was responsible for the loss of HMAS Canberra. With friends like that who needs enemies?
You are spot on with Fletcher. His yeoman was a friend of mine and everyone thought highly of him. He never cultivated the positive press that Halsey was known for. IMHO Fletcher or Spruance should have received the fifth star and not Halsey.
For anyone else trying to look up the admiral at 13:50 and was struggling to find him because of the spelling of his name. Olaf M. Hustvedt is how it is spelled and his Wikipedia page is well worth a read.
As former enlisted, I rarely have positive statements concerning most officers. But all of these men were professional naval officers and in their duties would sacrifice their lives in defense of our country. Some did. Halsey was a favorite of the enlisted. A relative on Enterprise for most of the war, said the crew would have done anything, took any risk, fought any battle for Halsey.
In the movie “In Harms Way” John Wayne is told after his ship is torpedoed while he was searching for the Japanese fleet, “In a few months they will be making heroes of officers that take a risk. But now punishment is the order of the day.” (Paraphrased)
My vote goes to Admiral Lockwood. Commander Submarine forces Pacific. At the start of the war the submarine torpedo was terribly inadequate but the bureau of ordinance blamed the submarine crews and did nothing to fix it until Admiral Lockwood proved the fault in the detonator and forced the redesign. His strategy and tactics enabled the US Submarine service (less than 2% of the navy) to be credited with over 55% of all Japanese naval losses.
As a Kentuckian I maybe biased for my liking of Admiral Lee. Not to long ago I finished reading Battleship Commander which is about Willis A Lee and instantly moved him to my favorite admiral. They way he treated people under his command and his interest in everything gunnery. He was also incredibly interested in the radar and learned as much as he could about it. I hate how unknown he is, even here in the state of Kentucky, for everything he did during WW2 and he was an Olympian on top of everything else.
In the American system, the higher rank you are, the less likely you are to suffer consequences for your actions. So yeah, not much chance Halsey would suffer for that. In all seriousness, as much as I dislike Halsey, MacArthur was at least 10 times as bad (though not an admiral).
I'm partial to Admiral Halsey as my late Great Uncle was his personal assistant during WWII and used to tell us some amazing stories when we were kids!
Daniel Callaghan was my dad's CO on the USS San Francisco and then he got promoted to rear Admiral and the San Francisco became the flagship, an in an engagement a Kamikaze struck the conning tower or the area where the captain's are and killed him and quite a few officers.😮
Had Halsey left Lee off San Bernardino strait and Lee went up against Center Force, the gun battle that never was, oh history wonders. My vote Lee would have had his moment.
William D. Leahy is not on the list. Perhaps because he had retired and served in other government roles. But he was recalled to active duty in 1942 and Roosevelt made him his Chief of Staff. Thus he would later be referred to as "The Second Most Powerful Man In The World". He was given his 5th star in 1944, the first flag officer to hold the rank.
I comment on this elsewhere, but Leahy was only brough back because Gen Marshall told Roosevelt to. Leahy's position was only created as a political concession to appease Churchill on "separate commands', and Marshall felt Leahy would be a good choice due to his "seniority" and calm nature. In official "level" Leahy was technically the most senior US military officer of WWII, but the true command was Marshall. If Churchill had never wanted "separate independent" commands, Leahy would have never been brought back into service. FDR was satisfied with Marshall and King, but didn't oppose Leahy's appointment on political grounds.
The admiral who DOESN'T belong on this list is King for refusing to accept advice on convoys in the early years of US WW2. That should have been obvious, even to this committee, at the time of the list. For me, it would be Nimitz at the top.
It's always easy to look BACK at someone's command decisions 40, 50, 70, 80 years later. The level of intel they had back then was miniscule compared to what we have today.
Lockwood and Kincade weren't on the list either. While Spruance got TF 16 mostly because of Halsey, Nimitz already knew him well from previous assignments. Aside from the obvious, the most important consequence of the Battle of Midway was that it led to Spruance becoming Nimitz's chief of staff. It would be hard to over estimate the impact of Halsey's bout of neurodermatitis in 1942. You could argue that that and the Doolittle Raid were the X factors that shaped the rest of the war in the Pacific.
I will also add that Fletcher evidently had significant faith in Spruance, since he handed battle command over to Spruance when he was forced to abandon Yorktown. Fletcher could have resumed command from a cruiser or met up with Spruance's task force, but decided the time lost wasn't worth it and just handed tactical command to Spruance instead, and left Spruance in command even after he did get aboard a cruiser and rested a bit. You don't do that with an Admiral you don't know or don't think is up to it.
Three admirals not mentioned who served well: Norman Scott (killed at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal; Charles Lockwood (submarine commander); William Leahy (FDR's Chief of staff)
Leahy was a political appointment, and the war would have been fought no differently whether he was there or not. Leahy only came back in service because General Marshall told Roosevelt to bring him back to fill a position that was only created out of political concession for Churchill.
Admiral Fletcher -- often criticized -- was a helluvan admiral. He got those precious pair of aircraft carriers out of harm's way immediately after the Guadalcanal invasion. The US Marines were pissed he left so soon, but Fletcher preserved America's modest carrier forces, which went on to fight in many more desperate engagements in those waters that year. It was an early phase of the Pacific War, when America was most vulnerable. Fletcher didn't care about his critics. Bully for Fletcher.
I am very partial to Nimitz for his leader ship, as well as Spruance. I got the chance to meet Halsey’s granddaughter briefly once sadly I didn’t get to ask her too many questions.
14:25 this is why I love reading and checking the sources that get cited in various articles or pages. That is so cool to have a link to this kind of analysis that was not well known
Nimitz was the best strategic leader and administrator the Navy has ever produced. No one else could have carried the weight of CINPAC right after Pearl Harbor the way he did, keeping morale and readiness from imploding. The best tactical unit commander was Willis “Ching” Lee. His understanding of radar as a combat tool was miles ahead of everyone else and his tactics were revolutionary in naval warfare. . Spruance was the most measured and calculating fleet strategist. His tendency to lean toward being more cautious may have cost more decisive victories in a couple of cases, but he never put his assets in unnecessary danger. He always brought his fleet and sailors home to fight another day.
Best Admiral? ABC - definitely! Andrew B Cunningham fought in the Mediterranean until he was promoted to First Sea Lord with the death of Sir Dudley Pound. While British (and so discounted by people who only think about the Pacific), his command of both battleships and carriers was superb!
You might give a passing mention to Bertram Ramsay, who masterminded the Dunkirk evacuation, then supervised the planning of Neptune, the naval element of Overlord.
My favorite is Marc Mitscher. A story goes that while in route to the Solomon Islands, Admiral Mitscher decided to grab some sleep in a tent at the base he had stopped at during his journey. Several hours later one of Mitscher's staff officers instructed a young sailor to wake up the Admiral. When the sailor did what he was told to do, Mitscher yelled at this young man, perturbed that his sleep was interrupted. When the sailor reported back the staff officer he was asked if he had found the Admiral. The sailor said no, he only found some grumpy old chief. Later, upon hearing about this, Admiral Mitscher commended the young sailor telling him that was the best compliment he ever got in Naval career!
Marc Mitscher falsified battle reports about Midway; specifically about the course flown by the Hornets "flight to nowhere". He should have been courtmartialed, but Americas need for heroes saved him.
He obviously learned a bit and did better late war, but Marc Mitscher is directly responsible for the loss of Yorktown due to his failure to direct the airgroup at Midway. So, he loses a lot of points for me there.
I don't make light of his naval service from before and during the First World War, and on through his first retirement. He should be well respected for his thankless job as the US Ambassador to Vichy France, both for his objective work and the morality which he brought to the job (something sadly lacking in the State Department, both then and today), after previously serving as Governor of Puerto Rico. I always just find his statement about the atomic bomb, when he really had not done any research into the Manhattan Project, hilarious.
I've seen things like this before. They don't make decisions by what the officer has done, they make the decisions by who they know best. The more the committee likes them, the higher the listing. This is why the Navy had so many problems when they were moving from a peacetime Navy to a war Navy. The officers in command at the start of the war were there because their commanders liked them, not because they could do the job. Sadly, these attitudes still exist in all aspects of military and civilian life today.
The Naval officers in command at the start of the war were there because the Navy's Chief of the Bureau of Navigation (Chester Nimitz) put most of them in those positions. Top-level commands were selected off the "Admiral's Slate" by FDR. Certainly some deserving officers were passed over. Others turned out not to be well-suited for wartime command. That's the way it goes.
@wildsm08 ~ You're certainly correct. Between the wars, due to the Great Depression and the general tight-fistedness of Congress during those years ~ the armed forces including the navy, struggled to operate on shoestring budgets. Funding was scant and promotions were slow in coming. Cronyism was rampant, unsurprisingly, since the "professionals" who had attended Annapolis tended to take care of one another and formed a sort of informal club, as opposed to mere "reservists" who were seen as part-timers, fairly or not. Men who came into the service from ROTC or OCS tended to be regarded not as equals among officers, but poor relations. Of course, these attitudes were not universal, but they did exist and influenced daily life in the USN. The Navy not only quarreled internally or competed, to use a more-polite word, they also were fighting with the army for funding and the ear of whoever was powerful on the 'Hill at the moment. When Franklin Roosevelt became president, he lifted spirits in the Navy and Marine Corps since he'd been Assistant Secretary of the Navy at one time, and was a well-known fan of the service. Regarding the video and the admirals chosen as the best, it would be interesting to know how the officers and men commanded by these admirals viewed them, and how closely their list would have matched the one compiled by the brass. I don't know if such a document exists, I tend to doubt it, but one never knows. But that's another true measure of a leader - how he is regarded by the men he led. In the Army, General George C. Marshal was famous for his little back notebook, in which he made notes about officers and soldiers who impressed him, or who failed to live up to his high standards. When the war started, Marshal promoted a lot of men over the heads of their peers and demoted a great many also, due in part to his diligence and knowledge of the inter-war army. I wonder who fulfilled that role for the navy? Leahy? King? Nimitz? Combat was merciless in exposing the also-rans who couldn't perform up to expectations, and likewise showing those fairly junior officers and men who had what it took.
@@GeorgiaBoy1961 The top line officers in the Navy prior to the war were exclusively Academy grads. There weren't many reserve officers. As far as who controlled flag officer assignments during the war, it was Ernie King, with input from Nimitz on Pacific assignments. FDR made a few selections early on.
@@dukeford- Yes, that's right. Between the wars, officer billets were in short supply, particularly in the regular navy as opposed to the reserves. It was only with war on the horizon and the massive increases in defense spending and manpower that would be entailed, that allowed the dramatic upswing in commissioned personnel, as well as enlisted men. The regular navy had to loosen up enough to permit people other than Annapolis grads to serve in the officer corps as well as in the ranks of ordinary sailors. The professional navy, the men without an "R" for reservist in their initial block, served as the cadre or skeleton, one might say, for this massive upsurge in personnel both ashore and afloat in the USN/USNR and USMC/R. Many naval historians would argue that this was the most-significant contribution made by those service academy graduates. King was a tough and arrogant SOB, but even his critics would mostly admit that he did the job of CNO well. Nimitz was, as the late James Hornfischer said, the "essential men" in the war in the Pacific. The individual whom around the whole enterprise revolved. FDR said, "Get Nimitz out to Pearl and keep him there until our ships sail into Tokyo Bay," and that is precisely what happened.
I stopped at #5min and made the predictions, Halsey is on the list, Spruance isnt. Halsey should have thanked Kurita everyday for the rest of his life for Kurita's decision to withdraw at Sumar.
18:59: The Battle of the Coral Sea actually was fought in early May (4 - 8) 1942. Admiral Charles A. Lockwood, commander of U.S. Navy submarines in the Pacific in WW2 was another miss from that list who made huge contributions to the taking down of Japan's ability to keep itself in the fight. My favorite admiral is, of course, Admiral Nimitz (who would be on any "top 10" list of greatest admirals of all time, IMHO). Wonderful video -- salute to you from a retired U.S. Navy chief petty officer.
Well my favourite Admiral of the war is Sir Max Horton, but given that's a different Navy :) As for the US Navy, I think Nimitz, Lockwood or Lee. Not terribly original I know. Edit: It would be interesting if you could get a mix of naval historians and RU-vidrs (like Drachinifel and Dr Clarke and yourself) together to do a re-assessment for the USN and other navies, and see what results.
I would say Admiral Yamamoto. He was the first admiral to create a carrier striking force (Kido Butai) which consisted of six aircraft carriers to be used as an offensive force. We Americans still believed at the time that battleships were the main force and carriers were for scouting and air cover. He showed the world the power of aircraft carriers at Pearl Harbor. We still use many tactics developed by Admiral Yamamoto and I think if he had the industrial capacity that we had at his disposal the war could have gone very differently. He was also against the alliance with Nazi Germany and opposed any war with the USA as he had studied at Harvard and travelled around our country.
