Roger

“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

“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

“During the war I was always impressed with the necessity of keeping an open mind and of being receptive to the ideas of others,” he said. “We study military history for the lessons it has to teach us, but we must not expect necessarily to obtain from history the correct answers to future problems. Situations rarely repeat themselves, and preconceived solutions, which result in fitting the situation to the solution and not the solution to the situation, are apt to be dangerous or costly. No one of us can be highly competent in all fields. It behooves us to recognize this fact and to take advantage of the superior knowledge and capabilities of others in their respective fields. Don’t insist upon making a lot of the decisions yourself which your subordinates can make better than you can.”
― 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