Thomas B. Buell > Quotes

“What time do you think you’ll be getting home tonight?” he asked. Margaret said she didn’t know. Spruance persisted. “Why is it so important?” asked Margaret. “Well,” replied her husband, “it’s not many women who can go to bed with a captain and wake up with an admiral.” Spruance’s clever way of announcing his promotion found its way into the local newspapers, to the amusement of his friends and colleagues. He was not amused.”
― Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

“The students’ study of the Russo-Japanese War impressed them with one certainty in the Japanese character: Japan would start a future war by launching a surprise attack before issuing a formal declaration.”
― Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

“Jarman accomplished little. For the next five days the soldiers tried unsuccessfully to dislodge the Japanese embedded in positions with the macabre names of Death Valley, Purple Heart Ridge, and Hell’s Pocket. It was a futile task.”
― Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

“Halsey was Spruance’s reporting senior during the two years that Spruance commanded first Aaron Ward and later Percival. He extolled Spruance in fitness reports for his skill as a destroyerman as well as for his character and brains.”
― Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

“In considering a nuclear war of the future, Spruance later wrote, “I am still opposed to the idea of war being conducted by mass destruction of civilian targets by long range missiles armed with nuclear warheads. I recognize that, if our enemy has them, we must be prepared to counter an attack and probably to retaliate in kind. I hope that the responsible governments of the world will be successful in their negotiations to prevent such a situation from ever coming to pass.”
― Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

“Spruance did not hate his enemy, however. Hatred was an emotion that interfered with rational thought. Instead he respected the Japanese, recognizing their ability to fight, and used his intellect—unencumbered with emotion—to make war. He would be guided by reason rather than instinct.”
― Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

“Spruance sent an appropriate message of commendation and appreciation to Mitscher and Task Force 58. “This has been an auspicious beginning for the operations immediately ahead,” said Spruance. “I am proud to have operated with you again.”
― Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

“One news item concerned a particularly grisly murder in the United States, prompting two officers near Spruance into a philosophical discussion of a murderer’s mentality. Murder was such an unnatural act, one commented, that only a man with a deranged mind would do such a thing. Overhearing the remark, Spruance lowered his paper and said dryly, “What do you think I have been doing all afternoon?”
― Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

“Following one of his speeches, he was asked whether he thought the Japanese-Americans should be allowed to return to their homes from their concentration camps after the war. It was a loaded question because most Californians were hostile toward the Japanese-Americans. Spruance responded vigorously and firmly that he condemned their illegal and unconstitutional deportation. They were not disloyal, he said, and as American citizens they had been deprived of their legal rights.”
― Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

“succinctness”
― Thomas B. Buell, Master of Seapower: A Biography of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King

“An idealistic contemporary of Spruance reflected sadly, “All of these things that I’d thought of as perfection in the way of midshipmen, I soon found were not so. My effort was to do everything perfectly the whole time I was a plebe, and eventually I found out that it just didn’t pay. You couldn’t do things that way.”
― Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

“Detailers were both courted and held in contempt by other officers. Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King felt they were prone to vacillation and compromise. In his book, anyone associated with the Bureau of Navigation was a “fixer.” He would always be suspicious of Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz during World War 11 because of Nimitz’s previous duty with the Bureau.”
― Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

“He and the staff had the intricate task of providing continuing naval support at Iwo Jima; attacking Tokyo with Task Force 58 in late February; withdrawing ships from Iwo Jima for repairs and replenishment; and reassembling the mightiest fleet in the history of the world for the invasion of Okinawa.”
― Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

“Spruance and his staff had to coordinate and control hundreds of ships and planes and more than 100 thousand men, fighting separate actions hundreds of miles apart within that vast ocean battlefield. Spruance succeeded because he elevated his mind above the details in order to maintain a broad perspective of his forces and the enemy as a whole.”
― Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

“I wish I had something more to do,” Spruance later wrote Margaret, “as most of the time I ride around as a passenger and might as well be ashore. This last time out, for instance, I was off on my own for only two days and a half. However, Bill Halsey is a grand man to be with. He is a splendid seaman and will smack them hard every time he gets a chance.”
― Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

“George held, and Spruance believed, that large landowners inhibited economic progress and inflicted poverty upon the working classes. His solution was to impose a single tax on all land rental incomes and to abolish all other taxes.”
― Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

“By June 1943 King became cautiously optimistic. In a letter to Vice Admiral Andrews he wrote, “The U-boat situation looks very encouraging for the time being. In these matters I am afraid I am a hard-boiled skeptic — but I am always glad to be disappointed in my pessimism!”
― Thomas B. Buell, Master of Seapower: A Biography of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King

“On one bizarre night the Japanese landed a transport plane on an American airfield, and 22 Japanese commandos galloped out and proceeded to destroy 7 parked aircraft and 70,000 gallons of aviation gasoline.”
― Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

“As it turned out, Spruance was able both to revitalize the War College and to relax while doing it, owing to his ability to get other people to do the work for him.”
― Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

“Spruance was particularly pleased that Conolly’s resourcefulness had untangled the early-morning confusion. “Seeing this,” he remarked to Barber, “proves that you can put complete faith in the men you have selected to do a job.” Barber was impressed that Spruance had said nothing to Conolly when Conolly’s landing force was in hopeless disarray. “If there ever was a person who was the paragon of coolness,” he wrote his parents, “it is Admiral Spruance. When our big day comes—if ever—the Admiral will do a superb job, not because he has a great capacity for hard work and detail (as is said of Napoleon), but because he cannot be flustered or excited, and trusts his subordinates to handle all detail.”
― Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

“He had been marking time in Pearl Harbor for two months, and two and a half months remained before D-Day on Iwo Jima. “The trouble now is that I do not have enough work thrust on me to keep me busy, and I am too lazy to dig up work for myself. Hence, I wish the time would come to start moving again. On board ship, if there is not much to do, I can sit down and read a book, but here I feel more or less obliged to keep office hours and reading a book during office hours does not look well.”
― Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

“Men and equipment poured in, and the Japanese transformed Iwo Jima into a fortress. Mount Suribachi was infested with caves, tunnels, and ravines containing artillery, machine guns, and mortars that commanded the only possible landing beaches, which were located at the base of the volcano. The flat part of the island was defended by blockhouses, pillboxes, and trenches that were connected by tunnels and caves protected by thick layers of steel, concrete, and dirt. Food, water, and ammunition were stowed deep inside the bowels of Suribachi. The entire island was an armored honeycomb impervious to bombs and shells. Some”
― Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

“The staff clustered around, all trying to read it at once. It was a perfect dispatch operation order without an erasure or correction. Not one of the staff could have produced it without a reference book. “Admiral,” the radio officer remarked, “the Navy is wasting money supplying you pencils with erasers.” Spruance almost smiled.”
― Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance