King, Admiral Ernest J.

King, Admiral Ernest J. (1878–1956),C-in-C of the US Fleet who was assessed by the official US Navy historian as being ‘the Navy's principal architect of victory’ and ‘undoubtedly the best naval strategist and organizer in our history.’

Born in Ohio of Scottish parents, King served in destroyers during the First World War and on the staff of the commander of the Atlantic Fleet's Battleship Force. Besides having a ruthless, driving personality, he was a man determined to master every aspect of his profession and between the wars he became both a submariner and a naval aviator. By 1938 he was a temporary vice-admiral, but the highest appointment in the navy seemed denied to him when Stark became Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) in 1939.

The war in Europe gave him new opportunities and in December 1940 he was offered command of the Atlantic Squadron, which, though a demotion, he accepted. (In the war-plans safe of his flagship he found just one file, covering possible hostilities with Mexico.) Restoration to three-star rank followed shortly afterwards and in February 1941 the Atlantic Squadron became the Atlantic Fleet and King was appointed its C-in-C with the rank of admiral. During this time he conducted the undeclared sea war with Germany in the Atlantic (see Greer and Kearny for example) with such skill and aggression that after the USA entered the war in December 1941 Roosevelt appointed him C-in-C of the US Fleet (COMINCH). The president had complete faith in him and called him the ‘shrewdest of strategists’. But he never allowed King to reorganize the Navy Department, a long-running saga in which King was continually thwarted, nor did he always take King's advice (see Task Force 57).

In March 1942 Stark went to London as C-in-C US naval forces in Europe and the post of CNO was combined with that of COMINCH, though the two organizations remained separate and distinct. The same month Roosevelt approved King's proposals for a Pacific offensive, a strategy summed up by King as: hold Hawaii; support Australasia; drive north-westwards from the New Hebrides. He pursued it with such vigour that Churchill called the Pacific ‘King's pet ocean’, and by January 1943 it produced a resounding victory on Guadalcanal which was one of the turning-points of the Pacific war. Credit must also be given to him for the US Navy's part in winning the battle of the Atlantic which his creation in May 1943 of the US anti-submarine Command, Tenth Fleet, helped bring about.

Unlike MacArthur, King never objected to the ‘Germany first’ policy (see Rainbow Plans and ARCADIA), but he did object to the Pacific theatre being ignored or neglected, and often said so very bluntly. This caused disagreement, and sometimes acrimony, at several Allied conferences, but none the less he retained a good relationship with, and even deferred to, the army Chief of Staff, General Marshall.

Two-thirds of King's time was devoted to the business of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and to that of the Combined Chiefs of Staff. That he devoted only one-third of his time to running the greatest fleet in history says much for his ability to delegate and for the quality of his staff. He was not interested in details, but concentrated on broad principles. His mind, as one obituarist put it, ‘was of Olympian simplicity’.

As a boy, King was much influenced by his father's upright and inflexible character. It made him single-minded and uncompromising, and he was not known for his geniality. He had the greatest contempt for civilians and said that they should be told nothing until the war was over, and then only who had won. His weaknesses, according to a US Naval Academy professor, were ‘other men's wives, alcohol, and intolerance’, and one of his daughters said of him: ‘He is the most even-tempered man in the Navy. He is always in a rage.’ But to those who measured up to his exacting standards he was considerate and generous, and by the end of the war he had mellowed sufficiently, when Japanese overtures to surrender became insistent, to send a message to Nimitz, the C-in-C Pacific Fleet, which began: ‘This is a peace warning.’

He was promoted fleet admiral in December 1944, and stepped down to CNO when, on his recommendation, COMINCH was abolished after the defeat of Japan. He retired on 15 December 1945. See also Grand Alliance.

Bibliography

Buell, T. , Master of Sea Power (Boston, Mass., 1980).
King, E. , Fleet Admiral King (New York, 1952).
Larrabee, E. , Commander in Chief: Franklin D. Roosevelt, His Lieutenants, and Their War (New York, 1987).