Frank Jack Fletcher

Frank Jack Fletcher

Frank Jack Fletcher (born April 29, 1885 in Marshalltown , Iowa , † April 25, 1973 in Bethesda , Maryland ) was an admiral in the US Navy during World War II .

Military career

Fletcher, a nephew of Admiral Frank Friday Fletcher , graduated from the US Naval Academy in Annapolis in 1906 and served first on various battleships and then on the USS Dale in the Pacific . In April 1914 he rescued volunteers on the transporter Esperanza while taking Veracruz , Mexico . For this he was awarded the Medal of Honor .

At the beginning of the First World War , Fletcher was the flag lieutenant of the commander of the US Atlantic Fleet . After initially serving on a battleship, he was given command of the destroyer USS Benham , with which he carried out submarine hunting patrols and convoy escorts .

After the war, Fletcher was involved in the suppression of the uprising in the Philippines in 1924 . In 1930 he graduated from Naval War College and a year later from US Army War College . Between 1933 and 1936 he served as an adjutant to the Secretary of the Navy . He was then used on different staff posts. After his promotion to Rear Admiral in 1939 , he was given command of various cruiser divisions.

At the end of 1941 he was given command of the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown along with the associated task force , which consisted of two cruisers and four destroyers stationed in the Pacific .

Under Admiral William F. Halsey , his task force took part in the now broken Pacific War in the first attacks on Japanese bases in February 1942 on the Gilbert and Marshall Islands . A month later, Fletcher took part in the tactical missions against New Guinea . Shortly thereafter, he was promoted to Vice Admiral , and the task force was expanded to include the carrier USS Lexington and its escort units. With this group, Fletcher took part in the Battle of the Coral Sea as a tactical commander . Although he suffered the loss of the USS Lexington , he prevented the Japanese invasion of Port Moresby .

The USS Yorktown , which had sustained considerable damage in the battle, was then repaired in record time in Pearl Harbor , so that Fletcher and his task force were still in command of the carrier task forces under Admiral Raymond A. Spruance in the Battle of Midway on 3. until June 6, 1942.

In August of the same year, Fletcher was given tactical command of the invading forces in the Battle of Guadalcanal , whose command was Vice Admiral Robert L. Ghormley . In the fierce fighting that followed in the southern Solomon Islands, the USS Enterprise , USS Saratoga and USS Wasp were subordinate to him . The Enterprise was badly damaged in the Battle of the East Solomon Islands , and a few weeks later the Wasp was sunk by a submarine.

From December 1943 to 1945 Fletcher took command of the US North Pacific Fleet. After the Japanese defeat, he oversaw the occupation of northern Japan; then he served until his retirement in May 1947 in the US Navy Administration. When he retired from active service, he was promoted to admiral .

Frank Jack Fletcher died on April 25, 1973 at the Naval Hospital in Bethesda , Maryland and was buried in Section 2 of Arlington National Cemetery.

The US destroyer USS Fletcher (DD-992) , which entered service in 1980, is named after him.

literature

• John B. Lundstrom: Black shoe carrier admiral. Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD 2006, ISBN 1-59114-475-2 .

Web links

• Official Biography (English)
• Biography of the National Cemetery Arlington (English)