William F. Halsey

US Admiral William "Bull" Halsey was born William Frederick Halsey Jr., in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on October 30, 1882, the son of the late Capt. William F. Halsey, US Navy. President William McKinley appointed Halsey to the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1900. While at the Academy Halsey was a member of the "Lucky Bag" yearbook staff, president of the Athletic Assocaition and got his letter in football (fullback). He also won the honor of having his name engraved on the Thompson Trophy Cup as the Midshipman who had done the most during the year for the promotion of athletics. He graduated from the Academy in February 1904 and was assigned to the USS Missouri. He later transferred to the USS Don Juan de Austria, on which he was commissioned an Ensign after having completed two years at sea, which was the requirement at the time. In 1907 he was assigned to the USS Kansas and made the famous World Cruise of the Fleet in that battleship. For the next 25 years virtually all of his sea assignments were on destroyers, beginning in 1909 when he was given command of the USS DuPont. He also served on the USS Lamson, the USS Flusser and the USS Jarvis. In 1915 he was assigned to shore duty for two years in the Executive Department in the Naval Academy. During WWI he was assigned to the Queenstown Destroyer Force, commanding the USS Benham and the USS Shaw. In 1920 he was given command of the USS Wickes and Destroyer Division 15. More shore duty followed, at the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) in Washington, DC. In 1922 he traveled to Berlin, Germany, as Naval Attache at the US Embassy there, and afterward performed that duty at the US embassies in Norway, Denmark and Sweden. In 1927 he was assigned as Executive Officer on the battleship USS Wyoming, and had a three-year hitch as commander of the USS Reina Mercedes, stationed at the Naval Academy. From 1932-34 he was a student at the Naval War College, after which he received his flight training at the naval air station in Pensacola, Florida, getting his pilot wings in May of 1935. Command of the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga followed, and two years later he returned to the Pensacola naval air station as its commander. Upon promotion to admiral in 1938 he was given successive commands of carrier divisions, and in 1940 he was promoted to Vice Admiral and given command of the Aircraft Battle Force. He was aboard the USS Enterprise in that capacity when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Several months later he was assigned to command Task Force 16 and escorted the carrier USS Hornet on its way to launch the first bombing of Japan. In June 1944 he was made Commander of the US Third Fleet and was in charge of naval operations against the Japanese in the Philippines, Formosa, Okinawa and the South China Sea, all the while carrying out the naval bombing campaign against the Japanese mainland. When Japan finally surrendered on Sept. 2, 1945, in Tokyo Bay, it was aboard Halsey's flagship, the USS Missouri. After the war he returned to the US and was posted to the Office of Secretary of the Navy. On Dec. 11, 1945, he was promoted to Fleet Admiral (the fourth, and last, officer to hold that rank). After a flying tour of Central and South America in 1946, he retired from naval service in 1947. As a civilian he joined the board of directors of the International Telephone and Telegraph Co., a position he held until 1957. He died of a heart attack in Fishers Ialand, New York, on Aug. 16, 1959.