Turner, Admiral Richmond Kelly

Turner, Admiral Richmond Kelly (1885–1961),US naval officer who proved to be the most gifted amphibious commander the Pacific war produced.

Though he was one of the US Navy's most outstanding pre-war planners—he wrote the early drafts of the Rainbow 5 war plan—the army chief of staff, Marshall, had him removed from the joint planning staff for being too abrasive. This assessment is supported by Turner's behaviour as director of war plans before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 when his political infighting was at least partly responsible for the failure of vital intelligence to reach the Hawaii command. However, the navy's C-in-C, Admiral King, called Marshall's decision the Army's greatest single contribution to the war in the Pacific, for Turner, whose capacity for hard work was legendary, went on to command the successful amphibious landings at Guadalcanal, New Georgia, Tarawa, Eniwetok, the Mariana Islands, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. See also amphibious warfare.

Bibliography

Dyer, G. , The Amphibians came to Conquer: the Story of Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, 2 vols. (Washington, DC, 1969).