Ernest J King - "No Fighter Ever Won by Covering Up"

When the going gets rough,” Ernest J. King once remarked, “they call out the sons of bitches.” He was speaking of his own appointment to command the entire U.S. Navy following the Pearl Harbor disaster. He had a fully justi-fied reputation for being as demanding of his officers and men as he was of himself. When President Roosevelt (Number 2) had to decide which should be defended with the remains of the Pacific Fleet, he asked King for a brutally frank assessment of which positions should be held.

Once those decisions were made, it was King’s job to rebuild the crippled U.S. Navy and prepare it to take the offensive.

An Education in Leadership

Ernest J. King was born in Lorain, Ohio, in 1878. At 18, he was admitted to the U.S. Naval Academy. A year later, the Spanish-American War broke out. King was put on temporary sea duty and had his baptism of fire in Havana harbor aboard the U.S.S. San Francisco, which was fired on by Spanish shore batteries. When the war ended, King returned to the Naval Academy and graduated in 190l, near the top of his class. In the years that followed, he won a series of promotions; when World War I broke out, he was put in command of a destroyer. 

Newer and greater commands loomed, and King was assigned to the staff of Admiral Henry Mayo, commander of the Atlantic Fleet. King was now in a position to understudy a command that he would assume a quarter of a century later. He was to learn much more than naval tactics; his lessons would include command, responsibility, and assertiveness.

Early Lessons on Initiative and Risk-Taking

One of the first things King learned was the importance of initiative. Sometimes it meant speaking out to a superior about a proposed regulation. In one instance, King urged that Mayo rescind a proposed regulation regarding specific procedures of naval ships at sea. King felt that individual skippers were in the best position to weigh the various factors that might be involved in varied situations. He argued that the skippers would find better ways of carrying out their missions if they were not strait-jacketed by rigid procedures. Mayo thought it over, agreed, and rescinded his order. Years later, King would issue a special order urging the encouragement of greater initiative among junior officers.

King admired Mayo’s quiet toughness and his willingness to take an aggressive stand, especially in the face of Allied hesitation. During World War I, Mayo confronted a top British naval officer who expressed caution about a potentially dangerous naval operation. Mayo, rooted in the values of the mid-19th century, drew on a folksy saying of the time to make his point: “You cannot make omelets without breaking eggs, and...war is made up of taking risks.”

Years later, in another war, King would embrace the idea and explain his aggressive stance in a more salty way: “No fighter ever won 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.”

The Student Becomes the Teacher

By the time World War I ended, King had been promoted to captain. Through most of the 1920s, King was involved in submarines, ending up in command of the submarine base at New London, Connecticut.

In 1927, King made a critical career decision: He won his wings as a naval flier. Navy aviation became his new passion. Two years later, he was put in charge of the U.S. Naval Air Squadron in Norfolk, Virginia. By 1930, he was commanding an aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Lexington. He was promoted to rear admiral in 1933 and made head of the U.S. Navy Bureau of Aeronautics.

Early in 1941, he was named commander in chief of the Atlantic Fleet, the job that his old boss, Admiral Mayo, had held in World War I. In December 1941, after the Pearl Harbor disaster, he was named commander in chief of the entire U.S. fleet. Shortly thereafter, he was also assigned the post of chief of naval operations. It was the only time in U.S. naval history that one man held both top posts.Allies 

Hold in the Pacific

The strategy of the Anglo-American coalition was to hold in the Pacific and attack in Europe. Roosevelt (Number 2) asked King to review the resources available in the Pacific and make recommendations. King said that Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Midway, and the points between the latter two should be held. Of course, that did not mean that he would stay on the defensive. Not King.

Ships were badly needed for both the war against the Nazis and the war against the Japanese. In the Atlantic, the United States faced battles against Nazi U-boats, as well as preparation for landings in North Africa and Europe. In the Pacific, the task was to rebuild the Pacific Fleet and add amphibious ships for use in island landings. King was in constant communication with shipbuilders Andrew J. Higgins (Number 69), Henry J. Kaiser, and others. There were issues of design and scheduling, differences of opinion with the Bureau of Ships, and other political matters that had to test the strength of even King’s tough hide.

The first post-Pearl Harbor invasions began in 1942. In the Pacific, the Marines landed on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. In the European theater of operations, landings were made in French North Africa. From that point on, the Allies continuously attacked. North Africa led to Sicily and then to Italy, which surrendered. Former Japanese strongholds were seized throughout the Pacific, often at heavy cost in human life.

On June 6, 1944, came the Normandy invasion. Once that beachhead was established, the Nazis were doomed.

In October 1944, the Allies invaded the Philippines and the battle of Leyte Gulf ensued. That victory confirmed that Japan’s days were numbered.

The Final Days of War

The final months of the war would bring terrible casualties to the U.S. Navy in the Pacific. Japanese suicide planes called kamikazes crashed into American ships, at terrible cost. Both casualties and ship damage were horrendous; more than 165 ships were damaged and between 24 to 40 were sunk. Several thousand seamen were killed. But the U.S. Navy held firm.

The war in Europe, mainly a land war, ended in a schoolroom in Reims, France. The war in the Pacific, largely a sea war, ended on board an American battleship, the U.S.S. Missouri, in Tokyo harbor.

King became a five-star Fleet Admiral in December 1944. In 1956, Ernest J. King, the fighter who never “covered up,” died.