Quotes from Walter R. Borneman

Assignments ashore and on ship came and went, but one's academy classmates were forever. From Manila to Panama or Honolulu to Guantánamo Bay, the fraternity gathered just as if its members were still on the banks of the Severn.

The agitation of the slavery question is mischievous and wicked, and proceeds from no patriotic motive by its authors," Polk wrote in late December 1848.

To Mayo, this meant "passing down the chain of command the handling of all details to the lowest link in the chain which could properly handle them," while keeping in hand matters of policy and strategic importance.

Nimitz kept avoiding the hands that attempted to steer him off the wing and into a crash boat. Finally, an eighteen-year-old seaman second class lost patience with the white-haired gentleman, and knowing neither his identity nor his rank, he shouted out, "Commander, if you would only get the hell out of the way, maybe we could get something done around here." Nimitz merely nodded and finally clambered into the waiting boat.

Jervis exclaimed, "Pitt is the greatest fool that ever existed to encourage a mode of war which those who command the sea do not want and which, if successful, will deprive them of it.

This escapade taught me a lesson," Nimitz later recalled, "to look with lenient and tolerant eye on first offenders when in later years they appeared before me as a Commanding Officer holding Mast."8

The academy certainly wasn't an absolute requirement for flag rank, but between the Spanish-American War, when Annapolis increased its enrollment, and World War II, no nongraduate attained flag rank.

Halsey was a guy who got things done and King definitely liked and respected that quality.

Naval aviation and America's submarine force would continue their ascension as both spear point and deterrent, but for the fleet admirals, September 2, 1945, was the apex of their careers.

Yes, in the last war King had convinced Admiral Henry T. Mayo of the importance of delegating and then trusting his destroyer captains; he had preached the importance of individual training and career advancement so as to be fully capable of executing such instructions; but when push came to shove, King had always had a terrible time biting his own sharp tongue and trusting that his orders would be carried out.

Leadership," said Nimitz, "consists of picking good men and helping them do their best for you. The attributes of loyalty, discipline and devotion to duty on the part of subordinates must be matched by patience, tolerance and understanding on the part of superiors.

Marshall was forced to acknowledge that there was little he could do but acquiesce to the reverse in the South Pacific, where so many of the operations were to be on or near water. King later described these discussions as having "to 'educate' the Army people.

He paused to write a five-thousand-word rebuttal.

the result of this engagement plainly indicates that a cool-headed commander who gets into the fight first and proceeds to business has the best of the battle from the start.

You could no more educate sailors in a shore college than you could teach ducks to swim in a garret"—

Cockburn watched as the presses and types of the newspaper were wrecked. The admiral lamented that publisher Joseph Gales was nowhere to be found, but supposedly declared, "Be sure that all the C's are destroyed so that the rascals cannot any longer abuse my name."31

The general once described Eisenhower as "the best clerk I ever had," and after serving MacArthur as an aide in both Washington and the Philippines, Eisenhower was well versed in his theatrical ways. "In many ways MacArthur is as big a baby as ever," Eisenhower noted. "But we've got to keep him fighting." 20

General Douglas MacArthur was the most brilliant, most important, and most valuable military leader in American history—at least that's what Douglas MacArthur thought. When asked by a proper British gentlewoman if he had ever met the famous general, Dwight D. Eisenhower—himself about to march into history—supposedly replied, "Not only have I met him, ma'am; I studied dramatics under him for five years in Washington and four years in the Philippines.

Meanwhile Arthur, his recent disappointment with the army aside, had been giving a speech to a reunion of the 24th Wisconsin in Milwaukee on September 5, 1912, when he suffered a stroke and died at the podium. "My whole world changed that night," Douglas later wrote. "Never have I been able to heal the wound in my heart."23

Then King repeated the doctrine of taking calculated risks with concentrated forces that Nimitz had just employed at Coral Sea and Midway. "Don't forget the proposition," the admiral told the reporters, "that the minute you try to be strong everywhere, you have only the men available—it means you will be weak everywhere.

No fighter ever won his fight by covering up—by merely fending off the other fellow's blows. The winner hits and keeps on hitting even though he has to take some stiff blows in order to be able to keep on hitting. —ADMIRAL ERNEST J. KING, Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, 1942

Leadership," said Nimitz, "consists of picking good men and helping them do their best for you. The attributes of loyalty, discipline and devotion to duty on the part of subordinates must be matched by patience, tolerance and understanding on the part of superiors."24

John Quincy Adams was convinced that Polk's election meant the end of the civilized world

With a combination of nimble counsel, exasperating ego, studied patience, and street-fighter tactics, William D. Leahy, Ernest J. King, Chester W. Nimitz, and William F. Halsey, Jr., built the modern United States Navy and won World War II on the seas. Each