Master of Sea Power: A Biography of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King

December 1941. Washington was in turmoil. The Japanese had smashed the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and were swarming across the Far East. Germany and Italy had joined their Axis partner in declaring war against the United States. Shock and confusion paralyzed the American high command. Staggered by the ferocity of the Japanese blows, the Navy desperately groped for leadership and direction. President Roosevelt turned to a tough, brilliant, and controversial officer. Admiral Ernest J. King, appointing him Commander in Chief, United States Fleet, and Chief of Naval Operations.

Only two years before, King had been passed over for higher command because — it was said — he drank too much, chased other men’s wives, and made too many enemies. Why, then, did Roosevelt elevate him to become the most powerful naval officer in history? According to legend, King had a simple answer: “When they get into trouble they send for the sons-of-bitches.”

Through almost four terrible years of war, King directed the operations of the United States Navy across the seven seas, landing Allied armies around the world and destroying Japan’s might in the Pacific. Always coolly reserved and taciturn, King would have been content to announce victory with two words — “We won” — and to say no more. In this engrossing story of the boy from Lorain, Ohio, who rose to command his country’s navy in its greatest hour, Buell has described the strategy and the anguish, the sacrifices and commitment behind that victory.

Ernest J. King became the first American naval officer to wear five stars and carry the rank and title Fleet Admiral. In this first and long-awaited biography, Thomas B. Buell, drawing on material not previously available, reveals Fleet Admiral King as a man of complexity and contradictions. His life consecrated the art of war. King was a grand strategist at Allied conferences from Casablanca to Teheran as well as supreme commander of a huge and puissant navy. The reader will discover King as counselor to Roosevelt — adversary of Churchill — and the sole advocate among the Combined Chiefs of Staff for carrying the war to Japan despite the “Germany First” policy of the Allied leadership. Measuring King against other great captains — including Marshall and Alanbrooke — Buell provides a reasoned and fascinating assessment of King’s true place in the history of World War II, revealing him at his best and his worst. Both scholarly and readable, Master of Sea Power is a splendid contribution to the literature of the Second World War.