William Frederick "Bull" Halsey Jr. (30 October 1882 – 16 August 1959) was an American Navy admiral during World War II. He is one of four officers to have attained the rank of five-star fleet admiral of the United States Navy.
Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Halsey graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1904. He served in the Great White Fleet and, during World War I, commanded the destroyer USS Shaw. He took command of the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga in 1935 after completing a course in naval aviation, and was promoted to the rank of rear admiral in 1938. At the start of the War in the Pacific (1941–1945), Halsey commanded the task force centered on the carrier USS Enterprise in a series of raids against Japanese-held targets.
Halsey was made commander of the South Pacific Area, and led the Allied forces over the course of the Battle for Guadalcanal (1942–1943) and the fighting up the Solomon chain (1942–1945). In 1943 he was made commander of the Third Fleet, the post he held through the rest of the war. He took part in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle of the Second World War and, by some criteria, the largest naval battle in history. He was promoted to fleet admiral in December 1945 and retired from active service in March 1947.
Halsey was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on 30 October 1882, the son of Anna Masters (Brewster) and United States Navy Captain William F. Halsey.
Halsey was of English ancestry. All of his ancestors came to America from England and all of them emigrated from England to New England in the early 1600s. He felt a "kinship" with his ancestors, including Captain John Halsey of colonial Massachusetts who served in the Royal Navy in Queen Anne's War from 1702 to 1713 where he raided French shipping. Through his father he was a descendant of Senator Rufus King, who was an American lawyer, politician, diplomat, and Federalist. Halsey attended the Pingry School.
After waiting two years to receive an appointment to the United States Naval Academy, Halsey decided to study medicine at the University of Virginia and then join the Navy as a physician. He chose Virginia because his best friend, Karl Osterhause, was there. While there, Halsey joined the Delta Psi fraternity and was also a member of the secretive Seven Society. After his first year, Halsey received his appointment to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis from President William McKinley, and entered the academy in the fall of 1900. While attending the academy he lettered in football as a fullback and earned several athletic honors. For some time while at the academy his roommate was William Alexander Ancrum. Halsey graduated from the Naval Academy on 2 February 1904.
Early military service, World War I
Following his graduation in 1904, Halsey spent his early service years on battleships, and sailed with the main battle fleet aboard the battleship USS Kansas as Roosevelt's Great White Fleet circumnavigated the globe from 1907 to 1909. Halsey was on the bridge of the battleship USS Missouri on Wednesday, 13 April 1904, when a flareback from the port gun in her aft turret ignited a powder charge and set off two others. No explosion occurred, but the rapid burning of the powder suffocated to death 31 officers and enlisted sailors. This resulted in Halsey dreading the 13th of every month, especially when it fell on a Wednesday.
After his service on the Missouri, Halsey served aboard torpedo boats, beginning with the USS Du Pont in 1909. Halsey was one of the few officers who was promoted directly from ensign to full lieutenant, skipping the rank of lieutenant (junior grade). It is for this reason that his dates of rank for both Lieutenant JG and full Lieutenant are identified as the same day, 2 February 1909. Torpedoes and torpedo boats became his specialties, and he commanded the First Group of the Atlantic Fleet's Torpedo Flotilla in 1912 through 1913.
Halsey commanded a number of torpedo boats and destroyers during the 1910s and 1920s. During World War I, he commanded destroyers that escorted convoys across the Atlantic Ocean, providing protection against German U-boats. At that time, the destroyer and the torpedo boat, through extremely hazardous delivery methods, were the most effective way to bring the torpedo into combat against capital ships. Then-Lieutenant Commander Halsey's World War I service, including command of USS Shaw in 1918, earned him the Navy Cross.
In October 1922, he was the Naval Attaché at the American Embassy in Berlin, Germany. One year later, he was given additional duty as naval attaché at the American Embassies in Christiania, Norway; Copenhagen, Denmark; and Stockholm, Sweden. He then returned to sea duty, again in destroyers in European waters, in command of USS Dale and USS Osborne. Upon his return to the U.S. in 1927, he served one year as executive officer of the battleship USS Wyoming, and then for three years in command of USS Reina Mercedes, the station ship at the Naval Academy. Then-Captain Halsey continued his destroyer duty on his next two-year stint at sea, starting in 1930 as the Commander of Destroyer Division Three of the Scouting Force, before returning to study at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.
In 1934, the chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics, Navy Rear Admiral Ernest King, offered Halsey command of the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga, subject to completion of the course of an air observer. Halsey elected to enroll as a cadet for the full 12-week Naval Aviator course rather than the simpler Naval Aviation Observer program. "I thought it better to be able to fly the aircraft itself than to just sit back and be at the mercy of the pilot", said Halsey at the time. Halsey earned his Naval Aviator's Wings on 15 May 1935, at the age of 52, the oldest person to do so in the history of the U.S. Navy. While he had approval from his wife to train as an observer, she learned from a letter after the fact that he had changed to pilot training, and she told her daughter, "What do you think the old fool is doing now? He's learning to fly!" He went on to command the USS Saratoga, and later the Naval Air Station Pensacola at Pensacola, Florida. Halsey considered airpower an important part of the future navy, commenting, "The naval officer in the next war had better know his aviation, and good". Halsey was promoted to rear admiral in 1938. During this time he commanded carrier divisions and served as the overall commander of the Aircraft Battle Force.
Traditional naval doctrine envisioned naval combat fought between opposing battleship gun lines. This view was challenged following World War I, when US Army Air Corps Colonel Billy Mitchell demonstrated the capability of aircraft to substantially damage and sink even the most heavily armored naval vessel. In the interwar debate that followed, some saw the carrier as defensive in nature, providing air cover to protect the battle group from shore-based aircraft. Carrier-based aircraft were lighter in design and had not been shown to be as lethal. The adage "Capital ships cannot withstand land-based air power" was well known. Aviation proponents, however, imagined bringing the fight to the enemy with the use of air power. Halsey was a firm believer in the aircraft carrier as the primary naval offensive weapon system. When he testified at Admiral Husband Kimmel's hearing after the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor, he summed up American carrier tactics being to "get to the other fellow with everything you have as fast as you can and to dump it on him". Halsey testified he would never hesitate to use the carrier as an offensive weapon.
In April 1940, Halsey's ships, as part of Battle Fleet, moved to Hawaii, and in June 1940, he was promoted to vice admiral (temporary rank), and was appointed commander of Carrier Division 2 and commander of the Aircraft Battle Force.
With tensions high and war on the Pacific front imminent, U.S. Naval intelligence indicated Wake Island would be the target of a Japanese surprise attack. In response, on 28 November 1941 Admiral Kimmel ordered Halsey to take USS Enterprise to ferry aircraft to Wake Island to reinforce the Marines there. Kimmel had given Halsey "a free hand" to attack and destroy any Japanese military forces encountered. The planes flew off her deck on 2 December. Highly concerned about being spotted and then attacked by the Japanese carrier force, Halsey gave orders to "sink any shipping sighted, shoot down any plane encountered". His operations officer protested, "Goddammit, Admiral, you can't start a private war of your own! Who's going to take the responsibility?" Halsey replied, "I'll take it! If anything gets in my way, we'll shoot first and argue afterwards".