The Quiet Warrior : a Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

553 Pages·2013·5.85 MB·English

by  Spruance

The Quiet Warrior
The Quiet Warrior
A BIOGRAPHY OF
ADMIRAL RAYMOND A. SPRUANCE
By THOMAS B. BUELL
With an introduction and notes by
John B. Lundstrom
NAVAL INSTITUTE PRESS
Annapolis, Maryland
The latest edition of this work has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of The
United States Naval Academy Class of 1945.
Naval Institute Press
291 Wood Road
Annapolis, MD 21402
This book was originally published in 1974 by Little, Brown and Company, Boston, Massachusetts.
© 1987 by the United States Naval Institute All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or
by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
First Naval Institute Press paperback edition published 2009.
The photographs in this book, unless otherwise stated, are from the Naval Historical Collection, Naval War
College, Newport, Rhode Island.
The author is grateful to the following for permission to quote previously published material: The United
States Naval Institute for the article “Admiral R.N., 1776,” by A. W. Moffat, published in the U.S. Naval
Institute Proceedings, February, 1972. Copyright © 1972 by the U.S. Naval Institute.
Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison for the following quotations from History of United States Naval
Operations in World War II: Volume VII, pp. 119–120, description of passage to Tarawa. Copyright
© 1960 by Samuel Eliot Morison; and from The Two-Ocean War: page 162, assessment of Spruance;
page 334, assessment of Spruance. Copyright © 1963 by Samuel Eliot Morison.
Vice Admiral Morton L. Deyo, USN (Ret.), for his letter to Admiral Morison quoted in The Two-Ocean
War, pp. 11–12.
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. for the letter from Secretary of the Navy Claude Swanson to Eleanor
Roosevelt, quoted on page 514 of Eleanor and Franklin by Joseph P. Lash. Copyright © 1971 by
Joseph P. Lash.
The Viking Press Inc. for the paragraph on statesmanship on page 239 of Studies in War and Peace by
Michael Howard. Copyright © 1969 by Michael Howard.
ISBN 978-1-61251-211-2 (eBook) The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as
follows:
Buell, Thomas B.
The quiet warrior.
(Classics of naval literature) Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Spruance, Raymond Ames, 1886–1969. 2. Admirals—United States—Biography. 3. United States.
Navy—Biography. 4. World War, 1939–1945—Naval operations, American. 5. World War, 1939–1945—
Campaigns—Pacific Ocean. I. Title. II. Series.
V63.S68B8 1987 940.54’5’0924 [B] 87-15177
Print editions meet the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
CONTENTS
Introduction
The Quiet Warrior
Contents

INTRODUCTION
W
HAT are the essential features that combine to create a truly effective
biography? Certainly it is easy to detect their absence. Some purported
biographers merely recite in broad fashion the primary events surrounding the
life of their subject and sprinkle a few entertaining anecdotes into the narrative.
They offer no deep insights into the individual’s personality or his way of
thinking. In creating the setting in which their hero or villain lived, worked,
prospered, or declined, they are apt to become so engrossed with collateral
events and stage setting that they lose sight of their subject.
The principal goal of a biography is to help the reader understand what a
person was actually like, how he viewed life and how he reacted to the
challenges that it posed. Thus, it is not only vital to have a grasp of what he did,
but also to know why he did it. Only in that way is it possible to measure the
man, to assess his strengths and weaknesses, and, most important, to gauge his
impact upon events and his fellow men.
At first glance, Admiral Raymond Ames Spruance would seem an ideal
subject for a naval biography, particularly a superficial one. All the major events
of his naval career took place at such a lofty level that the whole Pacific Fleet,
even many civilians at home, knew in a general way what he did in World War
II. Hundreds of documents and many books describe what the forces under his
command were able to accomplish.
What was Spruance’s role in the victory over Japan? First of all, he emerged
as the key leader in the most famous carrier action of history, the Battle of
Midway in June 1942. Then, after a year’s tour of duty as chief of staff to
Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet
(CINCPAC), Spruance was given the Fifth Fleet. This became the principal
Pacific Fleet amphibious command, charged with conducting the invasions of
the Gilberts, the Marshalls, the Marianas, Iwo Jima, and the climactic assault on
Okinawa. Spruance directed the vital thrust through the Central Pacific towards
the Japanese home islands. Along with Nimitz and Admiral William F. Halsey,
he stood in the first rank of naval leaders in the Pacific war.
As an individual, however, Spruance presents extraordinary problems for a
biographer. He was a very private person, unemotional and undemonstrative in
public. To a great degree he was unconcerned about his image, caring little for
“glory” in the conventional sense. His gods were logic and reason. The character
of Mr. Spock in the popular science-fiction series Star Trek could easily have
been patterned after Spruance. The admiral competed not with others but with
his own impossibly high self-expectations, and that is the way he judged his
successes and failures. A man who relied on deeds rather than words to make his
mark, Spruance seemed oblivious to what posterity would think of him. He did
not like to speak publicly, nor did he do much writing if he could avoid it. He
authored no wordy, self-justifying memoirs. His achievements, intellect, and
integrity were responsible for the great respect accorded him by his peers.
For a number of reasons, Thomas B. Buell’s The Quiet Warrior is able to
surmount these difficulties and get to the heart of the man. As a naval officer
Buell shared many of the same experiences, albeit two generations later, that
shaped the young Spruance. Like Spruance, he attended the U.S. Naval
Academy, learned the ropes at sea and ashore, gradually accepting more
responsibilities. Both men knew the joys and perils of commanding destroyers.
Finally, both profited from a close association with the U.S. Naval War College.
The similarities in their backgrounds gave Buell an insight into the challenges
Spruance faced in his earlier career and how he applied the lessons he learned to
his commands during the war years.
Buell had the great good fortune of meeting the man whose biography he
would write. Also, he had access to Spruance’s letters to some of his close
associates and to other historians. However, because Spruance did not often
record what he thought or felt, it became vital that Buell assess the man by
determining his impact upon others, particularly those who were near to him—
his family and his staff. Mrs. Margaret Dean Spruance, the admiral’s wife, and
Margaret Spruance Bogart, his daughter, offered Buell an intimate look at the
private Spruance through the eyes of those closest to him. Equally important was
the testimony of several officers who served on his staff. Two especially
valuable witnesses were his longtime friend and chief of staff, Rear Admiral
Charles J. (“Carl”) Moore, and his flag lieutenant, Captain Robert J. Oliver. The
outcome of Buell’s research and insight is a masterpiece of American biography,
a work whose evocation of its elusive subject can be favorably compared to Rear
Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison’s classic John Panl Jones: A Sailor’s Biography.
Perhaps the most important, though certainly not the fairest, way of judging
an historical study is to assess its influence upon subsequent works dealing with
the same subject. In other words, how does one book affect those that follow?
By that criterion alone, The Quiet Warrior commands respect. It has come to be
accepted as the authentic portrait of Raymond Spruance. Ever since its
publication in 1974, virtually all historians who have dealt with Spruance in any
significant way have cited this book. Whether or not these authors have chosen
to adopt Buell’s conclusions, they could not afford to overlook them.
What is particularly interesting to this writer is the manner in which other
authors have reacted to the sections in Buell’s book that deal with Spruance’s
two most controversial command decisions. Both concern his conduct of carrier
operations, the first in the Battle of Midway, in June 1942, and the second
almost precisely two years later in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Coming up
through the ranks as a surface-ship commander from destroyers to battleships,
Spruance was largely unfamiliar with the intricacies of naval aviation, and
carrier operations in particular. Whether or not this lack of specialized
experience was detrimental to his handling of a carrier task force in battle is
debatable. Certain aviators thought so, however, and smarted at serving under a
non-aviator, who, they felt, did not really understand carriers and their
capabilities.
The reports of Spruance’s role in the victory at Midway, and how this role
has come to be viewed by others, offer an instructive example as to the manner
in which “history” is written and illuminate some of the pitfalls that ensnare
unwary historians, who have either misread the evidence themselves or
depended upon others who have. Historical myths once planted are almost
impossible to eradicate. Spruance’s actions at Midway have engendered a small,
but tenacious, myth, which Buell’s book does its utmost to dispel, though not
altogether successfully.
To follow the growth of this myth, some background information is
necessary.1 In late May 1942 as the Pacific Fleet readied itself to do battle with
the Japanese Combined Fleet near the tiny Central Pacific island of Midway, its