Ernest Joseph King (23 November 1878 – 25 June 1956) was a fleet admiral in the United States Navy who served as Commander in Chief, United States Fleet (COMINCH) and Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) during World War II. Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed King to command global American strategy during World War II and he held supreme naval command in his unprecedented double capacity as COMINCH and CNO. He was the U.S. Navy's second-most senior officer in World War II after Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, who served as Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief. King commanded the United States Navy's operations, planning, and administration and was a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Combined Chiefs of Staff.
King graduated fourth in the United States Naval Academy class of 1901. He received his first command in 1914, of the destroyer in the occupation of Veracruz. During World War I, he served on the staff of Vice Admiral Henry T. Mayo, the commander in chief of the Atlantic Fleet. After the war, King was the head of the Naval Postgraduate School and commanded submarine divisions. He directed the salvage of the submarine , earning the first of his three Navy Distinguished Service Medals, and later that of the . He qualified as a naval aviator in 1927, and was captain of the aircraft carrier . He then served as Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics. Following a period on the Navy's General Board, he became commander in chief of the Atlantic Fleet in February 1941.
Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, King was appointed as COMINCH, and in March 1942, he succeeded Admiral Harold R. Stark as CNO as well, thus holding both of the Navy's highest positions. He also established the "numbered fleet" organizations under his direct authority, to include his personal commands of the First Fleet in global offensive submarine efforts and conversely the Tenth Fleet for global antisubmarine efforts. As COMINCH and CNO, all subordinate commanders acted under King's direct influence. King personally empowered the COMINCH Headquarters to execute global tactical operations, such as the campaign against the U-boats. He represented the U.S. Navy in top-level Allied World War II conferences, where he advocated a speedy victory in Europe under the "Europe first" strategy, a maritime offensive in the Central Pacific, and assistance to China.
Early life and education Ernest Joseph King was born in Lorain, Ohio, on 23 November 1878, the second child of James Clydesdale King, a Scottish immigrant from Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire, and his wife Elizabeth (Bessie) Keam, an immigrant from Plymouth, England. His father initially worked as a bridge builder, but moved to Lorain, where he worked in a railway repair shop. Ernest had an older brother who died in infancy, two younger brothers and two younger sisters: Maude (who died aged seven), Mildred, Norman and Percy.
The family moved to Uhrichsville, Ohio, when his father took a position with the Pennsylvania Railroad workshops, but returned to Lorain a year later. When King was eleven years old, the family moved to Cleveland, where his father was a foreman at the Valley Railway workshops, and King was educated at the Fowler School. He decided to go to work rather than attend high school, and took a position with a company that made typesetting machines. When it closed he went to work for his father. After a year, the family returned to Lorain, and King entered Lorain High School. He graduated as valedictorian of the Class of 1897; his commencement speech was titled "Uses of Adversity". The school was a small one; there were only thirteen others in his class.
King secured an appointment to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, from his local Congressman, Winfield Scott Kerr, after passing physical and written examinations in Mansfield, Ohio, ahead of thirty other applicants. He entered Annapolis as a naval cadet on 18 August 1897. He acquired the nickname "Rey", the Spanish word for "king".
During the summer breaks, naval cadets served on ships to accustom them to life at sea. While still at the Naval Academy, King served on the cruiser during the Spanish–American War. During his senior year at the academy, he attained the rank of cadet lieutenant commander, the highest naval cadet ranking at that time. He graduated in June 1901, ranked fourth in his class of sixty-seven and he was elected to serve at the head of the brigade. In thinking about American maritime policy, King often recalled the influence of the graduation address as given by the Vice President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, a renowned naval historian.
Surface ships Far East cruise Naval Academy graduates like King had to serve for two years at sea before being commissioned as an ensign. King took a short course in torpedo design and operation at the Naval Torpedo Station at Newport, Rhode Island. He then became the navigator of the survey ship , which conducted surveys of Cienfuegos Bay in Cuba. An eye injury resulted in his being sent to the Brooklyn Naval Hospital. When he recovered, he was ordered to report to the battleship , which was berthed in Brooklyn. The Illinois was the flagship of Rear Admiral Arent S. Crowninshield, and King got to know Crowninshield's staff well. King hoped to find adventure, seeking orders to the cruiser , which was bound for the Asiatic Fleet via the Mediterranean Sea. Crowninshield arranged for King's transfer to Cincinnati.
King was commissioned as an ensign on 7 June 1903, having taken his examinations while the Cincinnati was in Europe. The Cincinnati spent several weeks at anchor in Manila Bay, where it conducted target practice. In February 1904 it sailed to Korea, where the Russo-Japanese War had broken out. It remained in Korean waters until October, when it went to China. It was back in Manila for more target practice in February and March 1905 before returning to China. In June 1906, it escorted the Russian cruisers , and , survivors of the Battle of Tsushima, into Manila Bay, where they were interned.
As a junior officer, several captains applauded King's technical ability and future potential. However, he upset many superiors by being cocky, perhaps excessively confident, and certainly uninterested in fitting in. His occasional excesses on liberty led to adverse comments in his fitness reports. At one point, he ran afoul of the Executive Officer of Cincinnati, Commander Hugh Rodman, which resulted in King's nomination for dismissal.
When King heard that members of the Annapolis class of 1902 were being sent home from the Asiatic Fleet, he sought and obtained an audience with Rear Admiral Charles J. Train. Train agreed that King was entitled to go home and arranged for him to travel on the former hospital ship , which departed on 27 June.
Marriage and Annapolis
On returning to the United States, King rejoined his fiancée, Martha Rankin ("Mattie") Egerton, a Baltimore socialite he had met while at the Naval Academy. They had become engaged in January 1903. She was living at West Point, New York, with her sister Florence, who had married an Army officer, Walter D. Smith. King and Egerton were married in a ceremony in the West Point Cadet Chapel on 10 October 1905. They had six daughters, Claire, Elizabeth, Florence, Martha, Eleanor and Mildred; and a son, Ernest Joseph "Joe" King, Jr. Mattie was the enabler of King's rise within the ranks, as she presided within the social culture described by her friend Anne Briscoe Pye in the manual, The Navy Wife.
King's next assignment was as a gunnery officer on the battleship . King became a critic of shipboard organization, which was largely unchanged since the days of sail. He published his thoughts in Some Ideas About Organization on Board Ship in the United States Naval Institute Proceedings, which won a prize for best essay in 1909. "The writer fully realizes the possible opposition," he wrote, "for if there is anything more characteristic of the navy than its fighting ability, it is its inertia to change, or conservatism, or the clinging to things that are old because they are old." In addition to a gold medal, the prize came with $500 () and a lifetime membership of the United States Naval Institute.
As a result of the expansion of the Navy, officers who had served three years at sea as an ensign were eligible for promotion to lieutenant; the rank of lieutenant (junior grade) served as a waypoint for officers who required additional training or failed to attain the requisite endorsements for immediate promotion. King passed his examinations and secured the requisite endorsements, but his promotion required the approval of the Navy Retention Board due to his missteps as a junior officer. For this reason, King left the Asiatic Fleet for temporary duty in Washington, D.C., for ten days of physical examinations and an appearance before the Retention Board, chaired by the President of the Naval War College, Rear Admiral Charles H. Stockton. Impressed with King's potential, Stockton arranged the assignment of King to the staff of the Naval Academy with the rank of full lieutenant from 7 June 1906.
At Annapolis, King taught ordnance, gunnery and seamanship. The posting reunited him with Mattie, who had been living with her family in Baltimore. After two years he became the officer in charge of discipline at Bancroft Hall. King returned to sea duty in 1909, as flag secretary to Rear Admiral Hugo Osterhaus. After a year, Osterhaus was transferred to shore duty, and King joined the engineering department of the battleship . He soon became the engineering officer. After a year on New Hampshire, Osterhaus returned to sea duty and King became his flag secretary once more. Fellow officers on the staff included Dudley Knox as fleet gunnery officer and Harry E. Yarnell as fleet engineering officer. King returned to shore duty at Annapolis in May 1912 as executive officer of the Naval Engineering Experiment Station. While there, he served as the secretary-treasurer of the Naval Institute, editing and publishing papers in the Proceedings. He was promoted to lieutenant commander on 1 July 1913. World War I
When war with Mexico threatened in 1913, King went to Washington, D.C., to lobby for command of a destroyer. He received his first command, the destroyer on 30 April 1914, participating in the United States occupation of Veracruz, escorting a mule transport from Galveston, Texas. He then moved on to his second command, a more modern destroyer, the on 18 July 1914. He also served as an aide-de-camp to the commander of the Atlantic Fleet destroyer flotilla, Captain William S. Sims.
In December 1915, King joined the staff of Vice Admiral Henry T. Mayo, the Commander in Chief of the Atlantic Fleet. After the United States entered World War I, King went to the UK as part of Mayo's staff. He was a frequent visitor to the Royal Navy and occasionally saw action as an observer on board British ships. He met Royal Navy officers of the Admiralty planning staff, including Rear Admiral Sir Roger Keyes and Captain Dudley Pound, sowing the seeds of future collaboration. Commodore The Marquess of Graham gave Mayo and King a tour of the aircraft carrier , providing a glimpse of the future of naval aviation. King was awarded the Navy Cross "for distinguished service in the line of his profession as assistant chief of staff of the Atlantic Fleet."