The Drydock - Episode 195

I was privileged to be introduced to FADM Halsey just before his death. I had been hanging around the NavBase Phila as a boy, while WW 2 entered its final phases and ended up as a gopher, then a worker and got to know all of the ships stored there after the conflict, in the years before I was commissioned. Halsey was obviously failing and desperate to raise funds to save CV6. My father took me, I think it was Kearny, where it was to be scrapped. There were hundreds of former crew there. A sad sight indeed.

Over my 25 years of USN service , including six Pentagon tours , I fond little admiration for Fletcher’s service in WW2. As someone wrote of him : the CMH and Vera Cruz was a long time before the big show. There were many whom I encountered who had served with him still around so these were first person accounts . I recall someone who had worked with Morrison who felt that Fletcher being ignored was not due to his refusal to reconstruct his papers but because his performance was ordinary , for a combat flag officer, at best. Those close to Halsey said the old admiral was willing to tolerate Turner, because of his meticulous planning and operational success, Jocko because his courage outweighed his insubordination, Browning for his brilliance , and Mitcher , because of his daring. Fletcher apparently didn’t impress, else wise he wouldn’t have been banished to the deep freeze to figuratively hand out t shirts. It has been king known that Pye recalled Fletcher , yet Fletcher made no attempt to reinterpret his orders. For the Battle of Coral Sea , the prevailing feeling was that he was fortunate not to lose his command. As for Midway , “will steam in your wake and conform to your movements “, may have been the key ingredient as to Fletcher being an after thought. He did finish with four stars , but Chesty got his third only at the end and even R Lee Ermy was elevated to “gunny” only as the very end. I never met anyone who accused him of being a Miles Browning type, he just wasn’t very valued

Fletcher was already one of my favorite admirals, now knowing that he was from my home state he might just be my favorite now

Forgot Captain James T Kirk is from Iowa, he traveled back I time to when this channel 🤣🤣covers

Clayton Bradish