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From the J.C.S. Sherman won permission to put an extra cruiser into operation, then wangled another four destroyers. He got approval for as many Marine battalion landing teams as he could squeeze into his budget (probably eight instead of the scheduled six). Finally by squeezing his budget some more, he got an extra carrier. Next he hoped to get 32 more destroyers, and 400 more planes a year. The Navy, which in the heat of change of command had whispered that Sherman was ambitious, cold and ruthless, was amazed and delighted. One officer, who had greeted Sherman's advent with "This is a dark day for the Navy," admitted later: "The Navy hasn't seen anything like him in a long time."
Intent Man. At 53, Forrest Sherman is the youngest man (and first career airman) to be Chief of Naval Operations. A stocky man (5 ft. 9 in., 168 Ibs.) with a rolling, pigeon-toed gait, he has none of the traditional sea dog's look of shaggy-browed sternness. His smile is quick, friendly but curiously remote. His eyes appraise impersonally without open -approval or rancor, like the eyes of an airman inspecting an engine. Always, he keeps an air of detachment.
"Right from the beginning," said his Annapolis roommate, Merton ("Sticks") Wade, "he knew precisely what he wanted. He wanted to get to the top." And right from the beginning, as a boy, Forrest Sherman had wanted to go to sea. Before he could read, he was fascinated by woodcuts of sailing ships in an old history book. The high-school class prophet predicted confidently that he would be an admiral. His singleminded intentness was the kind that wins admiration, but seldom popularity. "You can't get good marks if you're popular," he once told his sister.
The second of a family of six sons-and a daughter, Forrest Percival Sherman was born to the headmaster of a small school in Reeds Ferry, N.H. (pop. 265) and to a mother whose forebears were John and Priscilla Alden. Shermans had fought with the colonists against the Dutch, gone with Benedict Arnold to Quebec.
Forrest grew up in a big, comfortable Victorian house in Melrose, outside Boston. He built model ships, and with his pals re-enacted the charge of San Juan Hill in the wood behind the house, using cordwood for cannon.
In summer his grandfather, a retired whaling captain who lived outside New Bedford, took him sailing in his catboat, taught him how to tie sailor's knots and to eat salt pork (anyone planning to follow the sea for a living had to learn to like salt pork, the old man told him). One day, far out on Buzzards Bay, the old man died of a heart attack. Twelve-year-old Forrest was not rattled. He lowered the ensign to half-mast as stipulated by naval custom, sailed the catboat safely back to harbor.