William Halsey, Jr.

Infobox Military Person
name= William Frederick Halsey, Jr.
lived= birth date|1882|10|30 – death date and age|1959|8|20|1882|10|30
placeofbirth= Elizabeth, New Jersey
placeofdeath=


caption=
nickname= "Bull" and "Bill"
allegiance= flag|United States of America
branch= United States Navy
serviceyears= 1904–1947 (44 Years)
rank= Fleet Admiral (5 stars)
commands= USS "Shaw" USS "Wickes" USS "Dale" USS "Saratoga" NAS Pensacola South Pacific Area United States Third Fleet
unit=
battles= World War I World War II **Pacific War
awards= Navy Cross Navy Distinguished Service Medal Army Distinguished Service Medal
laterwork=
Fleet Admiral William Frederick Halsey Jr., GBE, USN, (October 30, 1882 – August 16, 1959)"Halsey", ArlingtonCemetery.net.] (called "Bill Halsey" and sometimes known as "Bull" Halsey, but not to his face), was a U.S. Naval officer and the commander of the United States Third Fleet during part of the Pacific War against Japan. Earlier, he had commanded the South Pacific Theater during desperate times.

Early years

Halsey was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on October 30 1882, the son of Captain William F. Halsey, Sr. USN. After waiting two years for an appointment to the United States Naval Academy, young Halsey decided to study medicine at the University of Virginia and then to get into the Navy as a doctor. He chose that university because his best friend, Karl Osterhause, was there. Years later, Halsey admitted that he didn't learn much during his one and only year at UVA, but he had a wonderful time.cite news|accessdate=
url=http://www.stat.virginia.edu/maurer1.html
title=Naval hero's days at UVa were less than smooth sailing
author=Maurer, David A.
work=Daily Progress (Charlottesville, VA)
date=March 14, 1999]

Halsey graduated in 1904 from the Naval Academy with several athletic honors, and he spent his early service years in battleships and torpedo boats. The United States Navy was expanding at that time, and the Navy was short on officers; Halsey was one of the few who were promoted directly from Ensign to full Lieutenant, skipping the rank of Lieutenant (junior grade). Torpedoes and torpedo boats became specialties of his, and he commanded the First Group of the Atlantic Fleet's Torpedo Flotilla in 1912 through 1913, and also several torpedo boats and destroyers during the 1910s and 1920s. Lieutenant Commander Halsey's World War I service, including command of USS "Shaw" in 1918, was sufficiently distinguished to earn a Navy Cross (which was not a medal for life & death valor, as it later became).

Inter-war years

From 1922 through 1925, Halsey served as Naval Attache in Berlin, Germany, and commanded USS "Dale" during a European cruise. During 1930–1932, Captain Halsey led two destroyer squadrons, then studied at the Naval War College in the mid-1930s. Prior to assuming command of an aircraft carrier, he undertook aviator instruction, as required by Federal law, but he took the more difficult Naval Aviator (pilot) course rather than merely the Aviation Observer program. He insisted on taking the full twelve week course, and he was the last one of his class to graduate with his wings as a pilot. He then commanded the large aircraft carrier USS "Saratoga", and also the Naval Air Station at Pensacola, Florida. Capt. Halsey was promoted to Rear Admiral in 1938, commanding Carrier Divisions for the next three years, and, as a Vice Admiral, also serving as the USN overall Commander of the Aircraft Battle Force.

World War II

Vice Admiral Halsey was at sea in his flagship, USS "Enterprise", during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Upon learning of the Japanese attack, he was overheard remarking, "Before we're through with 'em, the Japanese language will only be spoken in hell." Halsey's contempt for the Japanese was well-displayed throughout the war to the officers and sailors under his command in very successful campaigns to boost morale. One such example was a sign Halsey hung on the bulkhead of his flag quarters, "Kill Japs, Kill Japs, Kill More Japs!". During the first six months of the war, his carrier task force took part in raids on enemy-held islands and in the Doolittle Raid on Japan. By this time he had adopted the slogan, "Hit hard, hit fast, hit often."

Beached by a very severe attack of psoriasis [Halsey suffered from it throughout the majority of his life.] just before the Battle of Midway, he lent his chief of staff, Captain Miles Browning, to his hand-picked successor, Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance, who, under the overall command of Vice Admiral Fletcher, and despite difficulties from Browning, led the American carrier forces to a victory against the Japanese Combined Fleet.

Halsey took command in the South Pacific Area in mid-October 1942, at a critical stage of the Guadalcanal Campaign. After Guadalcanal was secured in February 1943, Admiral Halsey's forces spent the rest of the year battling up the Solomon Islands Chain to Bougainville, then isolated the Japanese fortress at Rabaul by capturing positions in the Bismarck Archipelago.

Admiral Halsey left the South Pacific in May 1944, as the war surged toward the Philippines and Japan. From September 1944 to January 1945, he led the U.S. Third Fleet during campaigns to take the Palaus, Leyte and Luzon, and on many raids on Japanese bases, including on the shores of Formosa, China, and Vietnam.

Leyte Gulf

In October 1944, amphibious forces of the U.S. Seventh Fleet carried out major landings on the island of Leyte in the Central Philippines. Halsey's Third Fleet was assigned to cover and support Seventh Fleet operations around Leyte. In response to the invasion, the Japanese launched a vast operation (known as 'Sho-Go') involving almost all their surviving fleet, and aimed at destroying the invasion shipping in Leyte Gulf. A force built around a relatively weak group of Japanese aircraft carriers (Admiral Ozawa's 'Northern Force') was meant to lure the covering U.S. forces away from the Gulf while two other forces (the 'Southern' and 'Center' Forces) built around a total of 7 battleships and 16 cruisers broke through to the beachhead and attacked the invasion shipping. This operation was to bring about the Battle for Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle of the Second World War and, by some criteria, the largest naval battle in history.

The Center Force commanded by Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita was located and attacked by American picket submarines on 23 October, and on 24 October, in the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, Third Fleet's aircraft attacked it, sinking the giant battleship "Musashi" and damaging other ships. Kurita turned westwards, towards his base, but later reversed course and headed again for San Bernardino Strait through which he intended to pass to reach Leyte Gulf. By this stage, the carriers of Ozawa's decoy Northern Force had been located by Halsey's aircraft. Halsey made the momentous decision to take all his available strength northwards on the night of 24–25 October to strike the Japanese carrier force on the following morning. He resolved to leave San Bernadino Strait entirely unguarded. As C. Vann Woodward wrote, "not so much as a picket destroyer was left."

Halsey had swallowed the bait. He also failed to advise Admiral Kinkaid and Seventh Fleet of his decision. However, the Seventh Fleet intercepted an organizational message from Halsey to his own task group commanders, which led Kinkaid and his staff to believe that Halsey was taking his three available carrier groups northwards, but would be leaving Task Force 34 — a powerful battleship & cruiser force — guarding San Bernardino Strait.

Despite ominous aerial reconnaissance reports on the night of 24–25 October, Halsey continued to assume that the approaching Japanese Center Force had been neutralized, and he continued to take his entire available strength northwards, away from San Bernadino Strait and Leyte Gulf.

As a result, when Kurita's powerful Center Force emerged from San Bernadino on the morning of the 25 October, they found not one Allied ship to oppose them. Advancing down the coast of the island of Samar towards their objective — the invasion shipping in Leyte Gulf — they took Seventh Fleet's escort carriers and their screening ships entirely by surprise. In the desperate and unequal Battle off Samar which followed, Kurita's ships destroyed one of the small escort carriers and three ships of the carriers' screen, and damaged many USN ships, but the heroic resistance of the escort carrier groups took a heavy toll on Kurita's ships, and his nerves. He decided to withdraw towards San Bernadino Strait and the west without achieving anything further.

When the Seventh Fleet's escort carriers found themselves under attack from the Center Force, Halsey began to receive a succession of desperate calls from Kinkaid asking for immediate assistance off Samar. For over two hours Halsey turned a deaf ear to these calls. Eventually, at 10:00 hours,Fact|date=March 2008 an anxious message was received — "Turkey trots to water. Where is repeat where is Task Force 34? The world wonders" — from Admiral Chester Nimitz, the CINCPAC, Halsey's immediate superior, referring to the battleship/cruiser force thought to have been covering San Bernadino Strait, and thus the Seventh Fleet's northern flank. This message helped finally to persuade Halsey to turn his battleships and their escorts southwards, which he did at 11:15, but he then delayed for a further two-and-a-half hoursFact|date=February 2008 while refuelling the accompanying destroyers. By then, it was too late for Task Force 34 either to assist the Seventh Fleet's escort carrier groups or to prevent Kurita's force from making its escape.

This succession of actions on Halsey's part during 24 and 25 October was thought by some observers to have strongly damaged his reputation — both in the Third Fleet and throughout the U.S. Navy.Fact|date=February 2008 They derisively call the operation "The Battle of Bull's Run".

Typhoon

After the Leyte Gulf engagement, Third Fleet was confronted with another powerful enemy in mid-December — Typhoon Cobra (also known as "Halsey's Typhoon"). While conducting operations off the Philippines, the force remained on station rather than avoiding a major storm, which sank three destroyers and inflicted damage on many other ships. Some 800 men were lost, in addition to 146 aircraft. The storm is the central scene in Herman Wouk's "The Caine Mutiny" (and Halsey is an off-stage presence for much of the book).Fact|date=February 2008 A Navy court of inquiry found that while Halsey had committed an error of judgement in sailing into the typhoon, it stopped short of unambiguously recommending sanction. [Melton, "Sea Cobra"]

In January 1945, Halsey passed command of his fleet to Admiral Spruance (whereupon its designation changed to 'Fifth Fleet'). Halsey resumed command of Third Fleet in late-May 1945 and retained it until the end of the war. In early June 1945 Halsey again sailed the fleet into the path of a typhoon, and while ships sustained crippling damage, none were lost. Six lives were lost and 75 planes were lost or destroyed, with almost 70 badly damaged. Again a Navy court of inquiry was convened, and it suggested that Halsey be reassigned, but Admiral Nimitz recommended otherwise due to Halsey's prior service. [Melton, "Sea Cobra"]

He was present when Japan formally surrendered on the deck of his flagship, USS "Missouri", on September 2, 1945.

Post-war

Halsey was promoted to Fleet Admiral in December 1945, and retired from active duty in March 1947. Halsey died on August 20, 1959 and was interred in Arlington National Cemetery. His wife, Frances Grandy Halsey (1887-1968), is buried with him.

Dates of rank

*Midshipman - Class of 1904

Honors

*Two ships have have been named for Admiral Halsey: USS "Halsey" (CG-23), a "Leahy"-class guided missile cruiser, and USS "Halsey" (DDG-97), an "Arleigh Burke"-class guided missile destroyer.
*The airfield at Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego, California was dedicated in honor of Halsey on 20 October 1960, during a celebration of 50 years of naval aviation (1911-1961).cite book
author=Sudsbury, Elretta Sudsbury
title=Jackrabbits to Jets: The History of North Island, San Diego, California
year=1967
publisher=Neyenesch Printers, Inc]
*At least two American colleges have buildings named after Halsey: Halsey Hall at the University of Virginia and the Halsey Fieldhouse at the United States Naval Academy.
*A street, Halsey Court, is named after him in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
*Elizabeth High School in Elizabeth, New Jersey has a complex – Halsey House – named for Halsey.
*Halsey Terrace, US Navy housing in Honolulu, Hawaii.

In popular culture

*Halsey was portrayed by James Cagney in the fy|1960 bio-pic, "The Gallant Hours"; by James Whitmore in the fy|1970 film, "Tora! Tora! Tora!"; and by Robert Mitchum in the fy|1976 film, "Midway". As a note to the changing times, when "Tora! Tora! Tora!" was released in 1970 James Whitmore portraying Halsey quotes Halsey's famous line about where the Japanese language will be spoken after the War (in hell). In contemporary (in the 2000s) screenings of this film on cable and in current DVD releases, the line is dubbed out of the film by cutting the scene in which this statement was made.
*Halsey makes a brief appearance in Herman Wouk's novel "The Winds of War", and has a more substantial supporting role in the sequel "War and Remembrance". Halsey was portrayed in the 1983 television miniseries adaptation of "The Winds of War" by Richard X. Slattery, and in the 1988 miniseries adaptation of "War and Remembrance" by Pat Hingle.
*Halsey has been portrayed in a number of other films and TV miniseries, played by Glenn Morshower ("Pearl Harbor", 2001), Kenneth Tobey ("MacArthur", 1977), Jack Diamond ("Battle Stations", 1956), John Maxwell, ("The Eternal Sea", 1955) and Morris Ankrum ("Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo", 1944).cite web
url=http://imdb.com/character/ch0034858/
title=Adm. William 'Bull' Halsey (Character) from "Midway" (1976)
publisher=IMDb]
*An "Admiral Halsey" is mentioned in the Paul and Linda McCartney song "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey". However, it is not totally clear if McCartney meant William Halsey or Lionel Halsey, also an Admiral but of the Royal Navy during the World War One era; although the chorus of "hands across the water, hands across the sky" was a reference to the American aid programs of WW II indicating the U.S. admiral is the song subject.
*On March 4, 1951 Halsey appeared as a mystery guest on episode #40 of the game show, "What's My Line", where the panel correctly deduced his identity. [TV.com [http://www.tv.com/whats-my-line/episode-40/episode/92668/summary.html# Episode #40 Summary] ]

*In the film The Hunt for Red October, Jack Ryan tells Captain Ramius that he authored biography of Halsey entitled "The Fighting Sailor" about naval combat tactics. Ramius responds that he knows the book, and that Ryan's conclusions were all wrong. "Halsey acted stupidly", Ramius says.

ee also

*Pacific War
*List of military figures by nickname

References

Notes

Bibliography

*cite news|accessdate=
url=http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/28/opinion/28drury.html?ex=157680000&en=e3692a1a57e95bd0&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink |title=How Lieutenant Ford Saved His Ship
author=Drury, Robert and Tom Clavin
work=New York Times
date=December 28, 2006
*cite book|accessdate=
title=Sea Cobra, Admiral Halsey's Task Force and the Great Pacific Typhoon
author=Melton Jr., Buckner F.
year=2007
*cite book|accessdate=
url=http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/Last_Salute/Ch18.htm
Chapter=Chapter XVIII: Fleet Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., Special Military Funeral, 16-20 August 1959
title=The Last Salute: Civil and Military Funeral, 1921-1969
author=Mossman, B.C. and M.W. Stark
publisher=Department of the Army
location=Washington, D.C.
year=1991
*cite web|accessdate=
url=http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq36-5.htm
title=Fleet Admiral William Frederick Halsey, Jr.
date=June 2, 1996
publisher=Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy
*cite web|accessdate=
url=http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/halsejr.htm
title=William Frederick Halsey, Jr., Fleet Admiral, United States Navy
publisher=ArlingtonCemetery.net

Further reading

*cite book
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=blySKArX_RQC&dq=four+commanders+and+the+last+great+naval+campaign
author=Thomas, Evan
title=Sea of Thunder: Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign
year=2006
publisher=Simon and Schuster
isbn=0743252217
*cite book
url=http://www.amazon.com/Halseys-Typhoon-Fighting-Admiral-Untold/dp/0871139480
author=Robert Drury, Tom Clavin
title=Halsey's Typhoon: The True Story of a Fighting Admiral, an Epic Storm, and an Untold Rescue
year=2006
publisher=Atlantic Monthly Press
isbn=0871139480

External links

*cite web|accessdate=
url=http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/pers-us/uspers-h/w-halsy.htm
title=Fleet Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., USN, (1882-1959)
work=Online Library of Selected

publisher=Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy

tags: