William Bull Halsey: Legendary World War II Admiral
By Barrett Tillman
6/7/2007 • World War II
William F. Halsey was a sailor born and bred. His heart was Navy blue and gold, and it pumped salt water each of his seventy-six years. As a first to last combatant of the Pacific War, he launched aircraft into the Sunday surprise on December 7, 1941, and forty-five months later stood witness to the end of Imperial Japan on the deck of the battleship Missouri. Along the way Halsey became America’s most acclaimed fighting admiral and his own worst enemy.
His strengths were manifest in his faults: extreme aggressiveness driven by instinct rather than intellect. Historians still ponder the what-ifs of his career: the ailment that prevented him from commanding during the battle at Midway, the lapses that led to unnecessary losses at Leyte Gulf and “Halsey’s Typhoon,†the December 1944 storm that sank three destroyers and wrecked much of his Third Fleet.
http://www.historynet.com/william-bull-halsey-legendary-world-war-ii-admiral.htm
