Raymond A. Spruance

Raymond Spruance

Admiral Raymond Ames Spruance (July 3, 1886 - December 13, 1969) was a United States Navy admiral in World War II.

Spruance commanded US naval forces during two of the most significant naval battles in the Pacific theater, The Battle of Midway and the Battle of the Philippine Sea. The Battle of Midway was the first major victory for the United States over Japan and is seen by many as the turning point of the Pacific war. The Battle of the Philippine Sea was also a significant victory for the US. Spruance was known for his keen intellect and his ability to remain calm under pressure. He was also criticized by some for being too cautious at times. After the war, Spruance was appointed president of the Naval War College, and later served as American ambassador to the Philippines.

Early life

Spruance was born in Baltimore, Maryland to Alexander and Annie Spruance. He was raised in Indianapolis, Indiana. Spruance attended Indianapolis public schools and graduated from Shortridge High School. From there, he went on to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1906, and received further, hands on education in electrical engineering a few years later. His seagoing career included command of the USS Osborne, four other destroyers, and the battleship USS Mississippi (BB-41). Spruance also held several engineering, intelligence, staff and Naval War College positions up to the 1940s. In 1940 and 1941, he was in command of the 10th Naval District and Caribbean Sea Frontier, headquartered at San Juan, Puerto Rico.

World War II: Before Midway

In the first months of World War II in the Pacific, Spruance commanded four heavy cruisers and support ships that made up Cruiser Division Five. Spruance’s division was under a task force built around the aircraft carrier Enterprise commanded by Admiral William Bull Halsey. Halsey led a series of raids on the Marshall islands, Wake island, and other targets. The raids didn’t accomplish much militarily, however they provided significant propaganda victories as well as invaluable real world experience for the US Navy.

World War II: Midway

Admiral Bull Halsey, commander of aircraft carrier, Enterprise, came down with a severe case of shingles just before the battle which forced him to be hospitalized. He recommended Spruance to take his place over objections that Spruance, a cruiser division commander, would have little idea as to how to handle carriers. Spruance commanded Task Force 16, with two aircraft carriers, USS Enterprise and USS Hornet and was under the overall command of Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher.

Midway: Background to Decision to Launch

Thomas Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance (Naval Institute Press 1987), pp. 494-5:

The reasoning behind Spruance's decision to launch at 0700 on June fourth has been inaccurately recorded in previous published works. Nearly all have stated that Spruance intended to close to 100 miles and launch at 0900, but that Browning convinced him to launch ‘early’ at 0700 in order to catch the enemy carriers recovering from their first strike. The source of this version has never been disclosed in any of the published work on Midway, and for that reason alone its credibility is questionable. [Emphasis in the original].

On the contrary, Spruance’s own accounts give his intention as wanting to hit the Japanese carriers “as early as possible” and that he made preparations to launch “when we got within striking distance.” (Buell says this “was generally regarded as 150 to 175 miles.”) Spruance also said in 1966 that “There was no argument or discussion about when to launch.” This is from the notes of a Spruance interview by Walter Lord author of Incredible Victory, the first best-selling account. Buell corresponded with Lord about these notes, which also say (as quoted in Buell):

He wanted planes to go as soon as possible and told Browning to attend to it. Up to Browning to decide the exact time—that was his business—but Spruance all for anything he decided, as long as it was as soon as possible. The key to everything was surprise . . . to hit the Japs before they discovered the U. S. forces. This meant hit them the earliest possible moment we were within range. It became all the more important when we monitored the Jap call for a second strike.

Buell told Lord that, contrary to these notes, Lord’s book states that 0900 was Spruance’s “original inclination.” Lord responded “I didn’t mean to imply that

Spruance ‘intended’ to launch at 0900 .. I was trying to connote something less strong than intention, or even taking any firm position on the matter.” Lord also responded that “as soon as Browning came up with 0700, he went right along with it” and that Spruance’s main point had been to torpedo the contentions of Morison, Tuleja, Forrestel, and others that there was argument or discussion between him and Browning.

Buell believes this does not do justice to Spruance’s desire for surprise, and he rejects the further comment of Lord’s as to a letter he had received from

staff officer Bromfield Nichol to the effect that Spruance had suggested delaying the launch until they’d run in closer and that Spruance “had the good judgment to take the advice of others” – rejecting Nichol’s account as “inconsistent with the overwhelming evidence.”

Spruance himself, in 1955, in one of the few statements he published on the battle, the Foreword to Midway: the Battle that Doomed Japan, a translation of works by [[F uchida]] and Okumiya, refuses to take credit for choosing the exact time when an attack would do most damage, “flight decks full of aircraft, fueled, and ready to go.”

All that I can claim credit for, myself, is a very keen sense of the urgent need for surprise and the strong desire to hit the enemy carriers with our full st rength as early as we could reach them.

Buell, p. 496:

In summary, it is clear that Spruance indeed intended to launch at the earliest possible moment. In that Spruance told Browning to ‘launch the attack’ shortly after 0600 (as reported by Oliver [Spruance’s flag lieutenant, whose a ccount Buell verified in every respect]), it is not logical that Spruance would then decide to wait three hours (until 0900) and take the unacceptable risk of the Japanese hitting him first.

Midway: Decision to Launch—A Prelude

When Spruance took over for the indisposed Halsey, Spruance inherited Halsey’s command staff, bringing only his own flag lieutenant, Robert J. Oliver. There was high excitement among this staff about what Spruance was like, which Oliver was only partly able to satisfy. One thing in particular mystified them, and Oliver too, for that matter:

Spruance carried a rolled-up twenty-inch-square maneuvering board [a printed form used for solving relative motion problems], fastened by a paper clip. He was never without it, and when he entered the flag shelter he would casually toss it upon the book rack. There it remained until he retrieved it upon leaving. No one asked him to explain his mysterious maneuvering board.

“He would use it to make the most important decision of the Battle of Midway.” Buell, p, 142.

Midway: Decision to Launch

Spruance arrived at the “flag shelter” (the command post created by Halsey atop the Enterprise island) very early on 4 June, joining Browning, Buracker, Oliver, and the staff watch officer. They listened to the radio loudspeaker tuned to Midway search plane frequency.

The men sat and waited.

Seconds seemed like minutes, minutes hours.

At 0534 “Enemy carriers!”

At 0545 the same plane reported many enemy planes closing Midway from the northwest at 150 miles. But were they headed toward the US ships or towards Midway and how many of them were there? “The inconclusive reports had an unintended and malignant effect upon the staff officers, wrenching their nerves and intensifying their anxiety. Anticipating that the next message surely would locate the enemy, they could scarcely contain their impatience and excitement.”

At 0603 “the message burst through the loudspeaker”: two carriers and battleships making for Midway.

The effect was explosive. Browning, Buracker, and the staff watch officer lunged in a body toward the navigation chart, all grabbing for the single measuring dividers. For a moment it looked as if someone might get stabbed by the instrument’s sharp points.

Spruance, meanwhile, calmly rose from his seat, picked up his maneuvering board, and unrolled it. Oliver had wondered for days what it contained. To his astonishment, he saw it was blank, without a pencil mark upon it.

Spruance stood quietly behind his staff officers as they feverishly plotted the reported enemy position. When they finished, he asked that the contact report be read to him.

Someone read it.

Was it authenticated?

It was. Though not totally.

Then he asked for the ranges and bearing from Midway to both his force and to the enemy. These he plotted on his maneuvering board, allowing him to measure the distance from him to the enemy. Using his thumb and index finger as dividers, he estimated the distance was about 175 miles, within the maximum range of his torpedo planes.

He rolled up the maneuvering board and tossed it aside.

‘Launch the attack,’ he said.

Buell, 144-5.

The actual departure time of aircraft from Enterprise’s decks depended still on the distance each of the two opposing forces would cover, the direction of the wind and its velocity, the degree of accuracy of the reported position of the enemy, payload and fuel capacity, speed of manning the planes and starting them, time between first and last launch, combat radius, and “the time required to send the attack order by flashing light on the Hornet, also under Spruance’s command. Computing all this was Browning’s job, his considerable job. “But it had to be without delay. Spruance wanted his planes up and flying at the earliest possible moment.”

Browning computed 0700.

Spruance accepted.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

Midway: Proceed to Target

Half an hour into the launch, only half completed.

The first-launched aircraft circled, burning fuel, waiting for others so that it would be a coordinated attack, bombers first, then torpedoes, all protected by fighters. At the same time, the distance to target lengthened due to the winds.

Here is Spruance’s second critical, vital decision. Proceed to target. Proceed with the bombers then aloft. Torpedo planes would follow when they could.

Spruance had consciously and deliberately abandoned his plan for a coordinated attack in order to get something headed toward the Japanese without further delay.

Buell, p. 147.

Not until an hour and six minutes after launch had begun did the last torpedo plane lift off Enterprise’s deck. Hornet, following Spruance’s orders, had launched and gone. A report that a Japanese scout plane had sighted them had come in, but Spruance was unaware of this until nine minutes later, according to Lundstrom, The First Team (Naval Institute Press 1984).

Midway: the Strike

See Battle of Midway

World War II: Truk, Philippine Sea and Iwo Jima

After the Midway battle, Spruance became Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC) and later was Deputy Commander in Chief. In mid-1943, Spruance was given command of the Central Pacific Force, which became the United States 5th Fleet in April 1944. From 1943 through 1945, with USS Indianapolis as his usual flagship, Spruance directed the campaigns that captured the Gilbert Islands, Marshall Islands, Marianas, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.

Spruance directed Operation Hailstone against the Japanese naval base Truk in February 1944 in which twelve Japanese warships, thirty-two merchant ships and 249 aircraft were destroyed. While screening the American invasion of Saipan, in June 1944 Spruance also defeated the Japanese fleet in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Although he broke the back of the Japanese naval airforce by sinking 3 carriers, 2 oilers and destroying about 600 enemy airplanes -- in the Battle of Leyte Gulf a few months later the remaining carriers were used solely as a decoy due to the lack of aircraft, and aircrews to fly them -- Spruance has been criticized for not being aggressive enough.

Spruance succeeded Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz as commander of the Pacific Fleet in late 1945.

Later life

Spruance's promotion to Fleet Admiral was blocked multiple times by Congressman Carl Vinson, a staunch partisan of Admiral William Halsey, Jr.. Congress eventually responded by passing an unprecedented Act which specified that Spruance would remain on a full admiral's pay once retired until death. Spruance was President of the Naval War College from early 1946 until he retired from the Navy in July 1948. Spruance was appointed as American ambassador to the Philippines by President Harry S Truman, and served there from 1952 to 1955.

Spruance died in Pebble Beach, California in 1969. He was buried with full military honors next to Nimitz and his long-time friend Admiral Kelly Turner in Golden Gate National Cemetery, just south of San Francisco.

The destroyer USS Spruance (DD-963), lead ship of the Spruance-class of destroyers, was named in his honor.

The destroyer USS Spruance (DDG-111), 61st ship of the Arleigh Burke class destroyer, has been named in his honor.[1]

References

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.

• Bess, Michael (2006). Choices Under Fire: Moral Dimensions of World War II. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-307-26365-7. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

Sources

• Naval Historical Center: USS Spruance (DD-963)
• Naval Historical Center, Online Library of Selected Images
• Bess, Michael (2006). Choices Under Fire: Moral Dimensions of World War II. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-307-26365-7. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

External links

• Raymond A. Spruance Gravesite