FLEET ADMIRAL KING (674 pp.)—Ernesf J. King and Walter M. Whitehill—Norton ($6.75).
As the dust was settling over the ruin at Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt decided that the U.S. Fleet needed a new commander. He chose a man who was tall, straight as the spruce spar of an old ship-of-the-line, and as hard as the chrome-steel armor around his own battleships. His name was Ernest Joseph King. Nobody has ever offered a better explanation for his selection than King himself gave when he arrived in Washington to take over: "When they get into trouble, they send for the sons of bitches."
For four years, less two days (which he still begrudges), King commanded "the fleet"—which actually grew into a dozen fleets, the mightiest assemblage of sea power, afloat and on the wing, that the world has ever seen.* No service commander had more to do with the winning of World War II. None showed keener strategic vision, or made fewer spectacular mistakes. None is so little known, and for that, King himself is mostly to blame. Now 74, weakened by a stroke five years ago, he is anxious to find his niche in history, and so has collaborated with Walter M. Whitehill, librarian of Boston's Athenaeum, in what is accurately called "a naval record."
Taut & Happy? In this deadweight volume, the character and personality of King show through only accidentally, like a guilty glimmer of light from a ship darkened for war. Most of the book is obviously a lightly edited version of King's own autobiographical notes (they should have been edited drastically), though King refers to himself aloofly in the third person. The effect is like the royal "we." Only in an epilogue and incidental notes does Collaborator Whitehill manage to chip off the dapple paint and reveal the metal beneath.
Whether by design or not, King reveals himself in his choice of heroes. Heading his list of the world's great naval commanders is John Jervis, Lord St. Vincent, whom Mahan, in heartfelt admiration, could only call "a man of adamant." In these pages, King is exposed as a man of obsidian, consciously modeling himself on Jervis. He was flattered when friends said he was so tough that he must shave with a blowtorch, and gave him a four-foot crowbar to use as a toothpick.
Much of the toughness was picked up from his Scottish immigrant father, James Clydesdale King, who was as dour and granitic as the foggy vale for which he was named. He drove hard bargains with his son, and forced him to keep them. Ever since, Ernest King has driven hard bargains and resolutely kept his promises. Because he made it a point of honor to be fair to subordinates, Sundowner King cannot understand why they seldom warmed to him. Neither can he understand why a taut ship is not automatically a happy ship.
"So What, Old Top?" The amazing thing is that this "formidable old crustacean," as John Gunther dubbed him, survived the war in Washington. King started by disliking General George Marshall, his opposite number in the Army, though he later found much to admire in him. He bucked Secretary Frank Knox. He distrusted and openly fought Secretary Forrestal. He was proud to find himself a minority of one at an allied conference—"King contra mundum."