you win, I quit and will now go wail along with the ghost of Bill
the modern squishy marshmallow soft world of today is something I am glad that Bull Halsey never had to experience…it is hard enough for me to endure
There is nothing squishy about deleting comments that insult individuals. I doubt Halsey would insult another man’s wife or daughter.
I disagree but not going to do it again in order to preserve my neck and I very much doubt our famous naval admiral would have much of a career in the modern USN. I bet with his blunt speaking he’d have not even made it Lt(jg) before hurting someone’s feelings bad enough to be shown the door and thus real men of true fighting spirit are now not to be found in what was once a very great fighting force.
oh well…
He should have been shown the door for driving his fleet through two typhoons.
Tough talk doesn’t make a good leader. Aggressiveness without intelligence is just recklessness.
Spruance didn’t need to act macho tough to win at Midway; Nimitz led the entire Pacific War as a mild mannered gentleman.
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and in the end the Navy honored both men with classes of warships named for them but there never has been a Halsey class HOWEVER almost eight decades after the war we still remember Halsey as a man with the most “fight” in him than any of the US Navy combat admirals. He certainly would have gone after the remnants of the IJN after the Battle of the Philippine Sea and it is very possible the war in the Pacific may have ended up being shorter as a result with a great many US lives being preserved.
There was no effective IJN after Phil Sea. The atomic bombings and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria ended the war. Halsey did chase after the diversion offered him at Leyte Gulf, exposing the vulnerable landing craft to the main enemy thrust. Only the gallantry of the escort carrier pilots and destroyermen of Taffy 3 prevented calamity.
And I’ve never heard of anyone drawing a distinction between having a ship named after someone and that ship happening to be the first in her class. Halsey’s had two ships named after him and received a fifth star. But he is not the officer I would exalt for sound leadership.
so anyway, love him or not Bill Halsey would have had not one millimeter of tolerance for the modern politically correct polyester wearing USN today.
Still begging to walk the Plank, Scooter ?
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call me incorrigible…
by the by…how ya been? manage to give up the drinking?
let me just say this…
in a world where every word uttered must be completely free of any potential hurt to any person we end up in a place where our vocabulary diet becomes little more than unsalted crackers soaked in warm water…ie. no substance and zero flavor. not what I consider much of a meal to say the least. for anything to be at all satisfying it must have seasoning added and that goes for discourse as well as food.
now I’ll say no more lest I get the ban hammer dropped on me yet again
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Does the same rule apply to foreigners and newcomers on this forum, or only to c.captain?
I’m doing well and still drinking, had to cut back on the amount due to the slowdown in Gulf. I do miss the good ole days when I would call you a POS and you would come back with some of your poetic BS.
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ah for the old timey days, we sure did have some lively exchanges with Fraq playing us off one against the other. Pity this forum had to become so bland. I hardly ever get to result to using ALL CAPS anymore.
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Geeze…I just realized I’m drinking Flor de Cana rum with my pinkie finger extended. We’re all getting pussyfied!
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We could invoke a succubus and have your favorite battery expert return if it gets too bland for you here. 
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Regarding Typhoon Cobra:
17DEC44:
Commander George F. Kosco, the Third Fleet aerologist, had received reports from Ulithi and Pearl Harbor of a “tropical storm, very weak,” and had informed Halsey and Carney. Kosco could not pinpoint the storm, but he did not think it would be anything serious.
17DEC44:
Admiral Bogan was sure that a severe storm was approaching, while Captain Jasper T. Acuff, commander of the TF-38 replenishment group, was the first to make the correct guess as to the storm’s position and course. He and two escort carrier skippers agreed that the fueling rendezvous set for 6 am on December 18 would be directly in the storm’s path. Captain Michael H. Kernodle of the carrier San Jacinto had received storm warnings for 24 hours, but the information was not passed on to Kosco.
18DEC44:
“We were completely cornered,” Halsey reported. “The consideration then was the fastest way to get out of the dangerous semicircle and to get to a position where our destroyers could be fueled.” He sent a warning to all ships and weather stations at 9:14 am. “We didn’t think that we were dealing with a storm as severe as a typhoon until we were within 100 miles of it,” said Commander Kosco. Admiral McCain ordered changes in course and advised ships to disregard formation keeping and take the best courses and speeds for security.
So the head wx-guesser didn’t know where the storm was, and couldn’t advise Halsey. As we Monday-morning quarterback WW2 events, with the rose-colored glasses of 2018 and “sensitivity”, I’d remind our readers that the primary task of the fleet was to win the war against the Japanese. Bull Halsey was THE fighting admiral!!
Yes he made error in judgment, but who in today’s Navy blue water Navy has faced the kind of total warfare; air-surface-subsurface, that Halsey faced?
For further reading: http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/two-typhoons-crippled-bull-halseys-task-force-38/
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Did you read the article you linked to?
This was what was being said at that time:
Hoover recommended the reassignment of Halsey and McCain, and Navy Secretary James V. Forrestal was reportedly ready to retire Halsey. When the court’s finding reached the Navy Department, Admiral King agreed that the two officers had been inept and, with the weather data available to them, should have avoided the typhoon.
Forrestal wanted Halsey to retire -at that time. But he didn’t because King felt that it would hurt the war effort if Halsey was retired because he was a hero to the public. In other words high command felt that it would not be politically correct.
But Halsey was a national hero, and King had no wish to humiliate him. It would tarnish the Navy’s triumph in the Pacific.
That was then, Halsey is being criticized today because of “sensitivity”? How does that make sense?
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Of course I read it!
However, the “on-scene” weather guy, Kosco, couldn’t pin-point the storm.
Ulithi & Pearl said a “very weak” tropical storm. [Meaning Halsey wasn’t expecting a typhoon]
Kernodle of USS San Jacinto had received storm warnings, but failed to pass it up the food chain.
It seems to me it was the Navy Command structure went after the wrong guys. It was total Navy Hierarchy CYA. One must remember, almost 7 months later, when the USS Indianapolis was sunk, the Navy courtmartialed the Captain - the only captain so punished for losing his ship in battle. And to add insult to it, the Navy hierarchy called upon the Japanese submarine captain to testify against McCay. It was an outrage - to call in a former enemy to testify against a USN captain.
By the way, I wasn’t suggesting Halsey was criticized today because of his sensitivity. He’s being criticized because of our social “sensitivity”. You know, Snowflakes. Everybody gets a gold star. Everybody gets a participation trophy. Everybody can be a cheerleader in the New Jersey high school.
Halsey’s mantra was: “Kill more Japs”. (I know “Japs” is irreverent, but that was the vernacular at the time.) But he was hell-bent on that task.
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