Walter R. Borneman > Quotes

“No fighter ever won his fight by covering up—by merely fending off the other fellow’s blows. The winner hits and keeps on hitting even though he has to take some stiff blows in order to be able to keep on hitting. —ADMIRAL ERNEST J. KING, Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, 1942”
― Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea

“Leadership,” said Nimitz, “consists of picking good men and helping them do their best for you. The attributes of loyalty, discipline and devotion to duty on the part of subordinates must be matched by patience, tolerance and understanding on the part of superiors.”24”
― Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea

“John Quincy Adams was convinced that Polk's election meant the end of the civilized world”
― Walter R. Borneman, Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America

“Chester and Catherine had begun a lifelong ritual of writing each other daily letters whenever they were apart.”
― Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea

“Then Nimitz, being Nimitz, posted the usual watches and did the only thing that made sense to him. “On that black night somewhere in the Philippines,” he later recalled, “the advice of my grandfather returned to me: ‘Don’t worry about things over which you have no control.’ So I set up a cot on deck and went to sleep.”
― Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea

“Roosevelt’s election was particularly pleasing to Leahy because he believed “from personal knowledge of the man that he will use his office more directly for the benefit of the United States…. The Country and the Navy undoubtedly face a bad period, but I believe their policies will now be directed by a man whose point of view is wholly American.”
― Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea

“General Douglas MacArthur was the most brilliant, most important, and most valuable military leader in American history—at least that’s what Douglas MacArthur thought. When”
― Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea

“Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion,” Lincoln lectured Herndon, “and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose—and you allow him to make war at pleasure.”
― Walter R. Borneman, Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America

“Nothing could ever replace the treasure of America’s men and women killed or forever maimed by Japan’s attack, but Nimitz looked around Pearl Harbor and decided that it could have been much worse. On the list of physical casualties, there were three glaring omissions that would prove to be major strategic blunders on the part of the Japanese.”
― Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea

“Other men would get to command the spear point; Nimitz would calmly and diligently manage the arm that held the spear.”
― Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea

“Leahy wholeheartedly supported the airlift and Truman’s election, but he remained skeptical of the politics of the Middle East. “The President’s announcement [recognizing Israel],” Leahy wrote, “made with inadequate consideration leaves many questions unanswered” and could, he concluded, “drag the United States into a war between the two religious groups.”10”
― Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea

“The sentiment of nativism, decidedly against foreign-born citizens and frequently anti-Catholic, had recently manifested itself in the American Republican party,”
― Walter R. Borneman, Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America

“As if to underscore the seriousness of her charge, Abigail, only partially in jest, went on to assert: “If perticular care and attention is not paid to the Laidies, we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice or Representation.”
― Walter R. Borneman, American Spring: Lexington, Concord, and the Road to Revolution

“As Halsey looked over his shoulder from his campaigns across the Pacific, “the old battlefields were already disappearing into the jungle or under neat, new buildings. Where 500 men had lost their lives in a night attack a few months before, eighteen men were now playing baseball. Where a Jap pillbox had crouched, a movie projector stood. Where a hand grenade had wiped out a foxhole, a storekeeper was serving cokes. Only the cemeteries were left.”20”
― Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea

“But perhaps the greatest asset was the surviving oil tanks. Had 4.5 million barrels of fuel oil been blown up, what was left of the Pacific Fleet would have been forced to limp back to the West Coast and have its operations in the Pacific severely curtailed. That action, not Japan’s sinking of a few aging battleships, would have given Japan the free rein it sought in the South Pacific.”
― Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea

“With a combination of nimble counsel, exasperating ego, studied patience, and street-fighter tactics, William D. Leahy, Ernest J. King, Chester W. Nimitz, and William F. Halsey, Jr., built the modern United States Navy and won World War II on the seas. Each”
― Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea

“Midway wasn’t much of a place. Two tiny islands, crisscrossed by airstrips, totaled barely fifteen hundred acres on the edge of a lagoon circled by a jagged reef. But in May 1942, Midway may have been the most heavily defended acreage in the Pacific. Certainly,”
― Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea

“As always, King was the ultimate authority, the one and only arbiter. One night when the communications watch officer groped his way across the darkened flag bridge, he bumped into an unrecognized figure. “Sir, are you on duty?” he queried. “Young man,” came the response, “this is the Admiral. I am always on duty.”
― Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea

“In all, Yamamoto deployed 162 ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, practically its entire fighting force, in support of the Midway operation. (No”
― Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea

“On one foggy, misty night, King ordered the air groups from the Lexington and Saratoga to launch simultaneously well after sunset. The chaos was predictable but, in King’s mind, instructional.”
― Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea

“No President who performs his duty faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure.”
― Walter R. Borneman, Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America

“Esther Ross’s moment was at hand. Despite the time-honored tradition of christening ships with champagne, Esther swung two bottles suspended from the vessel by a long cord and wrapped in red, white, and blue ribbons. One was indeed the traditional bottle of champagne—described by the New York Times as “American champagne from Ohio”—but the other was “a quart of the first water that flowed over Roosevelt Dam in Arizona.” As the bottles broke against the starboard bow, Esther cried out, “I name thee Arizona!”
― Walter R. Borneman, Brothers Down: Pearl Harbor and the Fate of the Many Brothers Aboard the USS Arizona

“The academy certainly wasn’t an absolute requirement for flag rank, but between the Spanish-American War, when Annapolis increased its enrollment, and World War II, no nongraduate attained flag rank.”
― Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea

“Meanwhile, Honolulu, too, had been under attack—or so it seemed. Japanese aircraft had not dropped bombs on the city, but American antiaircraft shells, most improperly fused for detonation at altitude, had fallen on it. This unintended bombardment caused about forty explosions and added sixty-eight civilian deaths to the rising toll in the harbor. By about 10:30 a.m. Pearl Harbor time, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin rushed out the first of three extras that day, and Japan, with most of its attacking planes safely back on its carriers, had formally declared war on the United States and Great Britain.”
― Walter R. Borneman, Brothers Down: Pearl Harbor and the Fate of the Many Brothers Aboard the USS Arizona

“year-old man in a matter of hours.”13 Moored alongside the West Virginia inboard to Ford Island, the Tennessee had taken two bomb hits from the high-altitude bombers of the first wave. Far more seriously, the Tennessee had been inundated by a wall of blazing oil and debris blowing onto its stern from the burning Arizona. The heat was intense, and fires started on the stern and port quarter of the ship. There were no thoughts about abandoning ship, but with his crew engaged in major firefighting efforts, the Tennessee’s captain tried to move his ship forward to escape the inferno astern. He signaled for all engines ahead five knots, but the Tennessee didn’t budge. The battleship was wedged too tightly against the quays by the stricken West Virginia. Nonetheless, its engines were kept turning throughout the day and long into the night so that the propeller wash would keep the burning oil from the Arizona away from its stern as well as the West Virginia. As it was, one of the Tennessee’s motor launches caught fire from the burning oil and sank as it tried to rescue survivors.”
― Walter R. Borneman, Brothers Down: Pearl Harbor and the Fate of the Many Brothers Aboard the USS Arizona

“Meanwhile, ever more battleships, most laid down amid the fury of World War I, were commissioned into active service. The Tennessee-class of Tennessee (BB-43) and California (BB-44) joined the fleet by the end of 1921, as did the Maryland (BB-46), which managed to be completed before the lead ship of her Colorado-class, the first class to mount sixteen-inch guns. Colorado (BB-45) and West Virginia (BB-48) were commissioned during 1923. Eight of these battleships, Nevada and Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Arizona, Tennessee and California, Maryland and West Virginia—all built within a decade of one another—would forever be linked by the events of December 7, 1941. Colorado escaped the date only because it was undergoing an overhaul in the Bremerton Navy Yard in Washington State.”
― Walter R. Borneman, Brothers Down: Pearl Harbor and the Fate of the Many Brothers Aboard the USS Arizona

“Getting underway again, Arizona cleared the Pearl Harbor entrance and steamed off for night battle practice. On the evening of October 22, Arizona, as part of Battleship Division One along with Nevada and Oklahoma, was still at sea conducting maneuvers. As darkness fell, Admiral Kidd, as COMBATDIV One on Arizona leading the way, ordered the three ships out of column and into a line abreast. As the lead ship, Arizona occasionally flashed a searchlight off low-hanging clouds as a reference point. Nonetheless, the distance between Arizona and Oklahoma to port decreased until it became uncomfortably close. Aboard Arizona, Captain Van Valkenburgh ordered hard right rudder and signaled for flank speed. On Oklahoma, its captain ordered full astern as his ship was constrained from turning left by the proximity of the Nevada on his port beam. Both ships sounded collision sirens, but it was too late. Oklahoma, having a reinforced bow meant for ramming, struck the Arizona, a glancing blow on the port quarter. The portside torpedo blister meant to absorb torpedo attacks took the brunt of the blow. It resulted in a V-shaped gash in the blister four feet wide and twelve feet high. The structural integrity of the Arizona’s hull was not compromised, but this damage necessitated the ship’s return to Pearl Harbor for a week in dry dock. The Oklahoma got off easy with only the jack staff on its bow bent out of shape from the force of the impact.10”
― Walter R. Borneman, Brothers Down: Pearl Harbor and the Fate of the Many Brothers Aboard the USS Arizona

“As its decks emptied of the pitifully small number of survivors, the Arizona was not the only ship being abandoned. The West Virginia had sustained multiple torpedo hits as well as bomb blasts. With its captain dead on the bridge, the executive officer, Roscoe Hillenkoetter, gave the order to abandon ship without being in direct communication with damage control parties working to counter-flood the vessel and keep it from rolling over. The confusion was soon sorted out and the order countermanded, but in the interim, men went over the side.”
― Walter R. Borneman, Brothers Down: Pearl Harbor and the Fate of the Many Brothers Aboard the USS Arizona

“The second wave of Japanese attackers was less than an hour behind the first. This time, knowing the defenders would be on the alert, slow-flying, low-altitude torpedo planes were judged too vulnerable to antiaircraft fire and were not included in the attack. Only Val dive-bombers and high-altitude Kates delivered the punches, but they reversed the targets of their comrades an hour earlier. Instead of the battleships, the Kates dropped their bombs on planes and installations on Ford Island and at Hickam Field. Eighteen struck Ford Island, although the billowing smoke from the Arizona and other fires was so intense that it obscured much of the target. Twenty-seven bombers hit Hickam, while the remaining nine Kates pummeled Kaneohe Naval Air Station on the eastern shores of Oahu. The eighty Val dive-bombers largely sought targets of opportunity among the undamaged ships throughout the harbor. Judging that resistance from American fighters had been suppressed by the first strike, the thirty-six Zeroes accompanying the second wave broke into two groups and went after their own targets. Eighteen hit Kaneohe and Bellows Field, while the remaining Zeroes strafed service buildings and parked aircraft at Hickam Field. Even if few American planes were flying, a barrage of antiaircraft fire from ships in the harbor shot down six Zeroes and fourteen Vals in this second wave.”
― Walter R. Borneman, Brothers Down: Pearl Harbor and the Fate of the Many Brothers Aboard the USS Arizona

“THROUGHOUT 1941, THE officers and crew of the Arizona were caught up in an ever-escalating whirlwind. The air was filled with war tension that everyone from admirals to raw recruits could feel. Most traced the origins to the day Adolf Hitler invaded Poland in September 1939, but Japan had been at war in the Pacific since its efforts to subjugate China in 1937. At the heart of the matter were natural resources. What Japan’s home islands lacked, Japan needed to find elsewhere. After France surrendered to Germany and Great Britain stood alone against the Axis threat, Japan took advantage of the collapse of French authority in Indochina to move south, seize more territory, and threaten the natural resources of the Netherlands East Indies.”
― Walter R. Borneman, Brothers Down: Pearl Harbor and the Fate of the Many Brothers Aboard the USS Arizona