"The chief of naval operations (CNO) is the highest-ranking officer of the United States Navy. The position is a statutory office (10 U.S.C. § 8033) held by an admiral who is a military adviser and deputy to the secretary of the Navy.
The CNO is also a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (10 U.S.C. § 151)
and in this capacity, a military adviser to the National Security Council, the Homeland Security Council, the secretary of defense, and the president."
___
"J.S. Champlin refers to Captain Jackson Selover Champlin, a US Navy officer who had a distinguished career.
He commanded several ships, including the USS HARADEN and the USS MT. OLYMPUS, and served in various roles, including
an instructor at the Naval Academy
and in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations.
He also received numerous medals and decorations for his service"
____
"Sherman's next assignment, beginning in January 1948, was to command the navy's operating forces in the Mediterranean Sea .
He was recalled to Washington, D.C., at the end of October 1949 to become Chief of Naval Operations,
with the rank of admiral. During the next sixteen months, he helped the navy recover from a period of intense political controversy
(as in the so-called "Revolt of the Admirals").
Sherman's absence from the recent controversy, and his role in the unification negotiations made him the logical candidate.
As Chief of Naval Operations, he oversaw the responses to the twin challenges of a hot war in Korea and an intensifying cold war elsewhere in the world."
"On July 22, 1951, while on a military and diplomatic trip to Europe, Admiral Forrest Sherman died in Naples, Italy,
following a sudden series of heart attacks.
He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery on July 27, 1951."
"The "Revolt of the Admirals" was a policy and funding dispute within the United States government during the Cold War in 1949, involving a number of retired and active duty United States Navy admirals.
These included serving officers Admiral Louis E. Denfeld, Chief of Naval Operations, and Vice Admiral Gerald F. Bogan, as well as Fleet Admirals Chester Nimitz and William Halsey, senior officers during World War II.
"The episode occurred at a time when President Harry S. Truman and Secretary of Defense Louis A. Johnson were seeking to reduce military expenditures in the aftermath of World War II so that President Truman could redirect funding to his domestic priorities.
This policy involved deep cuts to the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps,
while making the United States Air Force and strategic nuclear bombing the primary means of defending American interests.
The Navy sought to carve out a role for itself in strategic bombing with Naval Aviation, which the Air Force saw as one of its primary roles."
"Partly driven by interservice rivalry, the debate escalated from differences over strategy to
the question of civilian control over the military.
Senior Navy officers...regarded the committee's recommendations as radical.
They opposed the idea of a single secretary of National Defense, which they felt was too much responsibility for one man,
and it interposed a civilian head between the JCS and the President of the United States, which might diminish the Navy's power and influence. "
"July 1946, James Forrestal, the Secretary of the Navy and Nimitz, now the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), replaced him with the DCNO for Operations,
Rear Admiral Forrest Sherman.
Although also a naval aviator, Sherman did not oppose unification. He and Norstad drew up an agreement that was endorsed by the JCS and forwarded to President Harry S. Truman, for approval on 12 December 1946.
This became the basis for the National Security Act of 1947,
which created the National Security Council (NSC), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), an independent United States Air Force (USAF),
three civilian military department heads and the National Military Establishment, a unified command with a cabinet-level Secretary of Defense to oversee the service departments "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolt_of_the_Admirals
"Deficit spending had lifted the United States out of the Great Depression, but now Truman and his economic advisors were concerned about the prospect of inflation, which rose to 14.4 percent in 1947 after wartime price controls were removed, and embraced austerity.
To reduce expenditures, the armed services had to quickly demobilize and return to a peacetime military. "
"services were reduced from 89 Army and Marine divisions to 12;
from 213 Air Force air groups to 63 (only 11 of which were operational, with some existing only on paper);
and from 1,166 Navy warships to 343.
Meanwhile, $13 billion went into the Marshall Plan, from 1948 to 1952."
"US war plans were drafted for a potential conflict with the Soviet Union.
It was considered unlikely that the Soviet Union wanted to start a war, but the plans were prepared for the possibility that one might break out as a result of a miscalculation."
"Admiral Louis E. Denfeld, who had succeeded Nimitz as CNO on 15 December 1947, was critical of the war plan, which he regarded as deeply flawed.
He noted that abandoning Western Europe without a struggle ran counter
to the US Government policy of building up the democracies there,
and it meant accepting the loss of the Mediterranean Sea as well. "
"of the principal targets of the bombing offensive in Europe was destroyed or even suffered severe disruption and
only the oil campaign
was ultimately regarded as successful"
***
"T]he most effective air siege will result by concurrently attacking every critical element of the enemy's economy at the same time.
This will result in a general disintegration of all industry that will, in turn, prevent reconstruction.
Oil, transportation, power, vital end products, and weapon factories,
if destroyed concurrently...there seems little question but
that a nation would die
just as surely as a man will die
if a bullet pierces his heart and his circulatory system is stopped."
"The bombing campaign called for in the war plans was both nuclear and conventional. By June 1948, components for about fifty Fat Man and two Little Boy bombs were on hand.
These had to be assembled by specially trained Armed Forces Special Weapons Project assembly teams.
Only Silverplate Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers were capable of delivering nuclear weapons, and of the 65 that had been made, only 32 were operational at the start of 1948, all of which were assigned to the 509th Bombardment Group, which was
based at Walker Air Force Base, formerly Roswell Army Airfield, in New Mexico."
"the Berlin Blockade in June 1948 led to increased concerns about the aggressive stance taken by the Soviet Union, and demands for an intercontinental bomber "
"Being in third place for funding behind the Army and Air Force represented a major loss of status for the Navy,
which had traditionally seen itself as the nation's first line of defense.
The Navy's budget had exceeded the Army's for every year but one between 1922 and 1939.
It enjoyed the support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and had its own secretary who reported directly to him. "
___
"any target in the world was within 1,500 nautical miles (2,800 km; 1,700 mi) of the sea. A carrier could be deployed quickly in a crisis, and did not require the establishment of expensive overseas bases"
___
"Forrestal considered the notion of a single service having a monopoly on nuclear weapons to be misguided."
__&
"Forrestal did not support Truman's 1948 Presidential campaign; instead, he met with Truman's opponent, Thomas E. Dewey, with whom he discussed the possibility of remaining in cabinet in a Republican administration.
Truman was angered by this, and on 2 March 1949, after he won the election, he announced that Forrestal was being replaced by Louis A. Johnson, who had raised $1.5 million for Truman's re-election campaign.
On 22 May, Forrestal committed suicide by self-defenestration."
(Defenestration
(from Neo-Latin de fenestra)
"is the act of throwing someone or something out of a window.
the term is also used to describe the forcible or summary removal of an adversary." )
"Johnson had no qualms over supporting Truman's military budget reductions and fiscally preferred the Air Force's argument.
His idea of an executive was someone who gave orders, and those orders were to be carried out immediately and without question.
When the naval officers questioned his decisions on weapons and strategy
(such as the cancellation of the United States), he took that as a sign of insubordination.
When attacks appeared against his character, he wanted those responsible severely punished."
"Johnson recommended Francis P. Matthews for the position of
Secretary of the Navy.
A lawyer from Omaha, Nebraska, he had served as a director of the United Service Organizations (USO), a service organization that entertained the troops.
He came to the attention of Johnson by assisting him with political fund raising for the 1948 Truman campaign.
Matthews admitted the nearest he had come to naval experience was rowing a boat on a lake."
No comments:
Post a Comment