Paul Stillwell - Battleship Commander: The Life of Vice Admiral Willis A. Lee Jr.

THE LIFE OF VICE ADMIRAL WILLIS A. LEE JR.

Paul Stillwell

Naval Institute Press
Annapolis, Maryland

This book has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of Edward S. and Joyce I. Miller.

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

2021 by Paul Stillwell

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Stillwell, Paul, date, author.

Title: Battleship commander : the life of Vice Admiral Willis A. Lee Jr. / Paul Stillwell.

Other titles: Life of Vice Admiral Willis A. Lee Jr. Description: Annapolis, Maryland : Naval Institute Press, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021017418 (print) | LCCN 2021017419 (ebook) | ISBN 9781682475935 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781682475942 (epub) | ISBN 9781682475942 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Lee, Willis A., Jr. (Willis Augustus), 18881945. | AdmiralsUnited StatesBiography. | United States. NavyHistory20th century. | World War, 19391945CampaignsPacific Ocean. | World War, 19391945Naval operations, American. | World War, 19391945Biography. | United States. Navy--Biography. | Naval art and scienceHistory20th century.

Classification: LCC E746.L4 S75 2021 (print) | LCC E746.L4 (ebook) | DDC 359.0092 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021017418

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021017419

Print editions meet the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

Printed in the United States of America.

29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 219 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First printing

Maps created by James M. Caiella.

Don Siders and Margaret Allen

Evan and Kate Smith

Guil and Mary Aertsen

Their generosity and kindness contributed substantially to this portrayal of Willis A. Lee Jr. as a naval officer and human being.

I n gathering material for this volume, I am especially grateful to the three pairs of individuals to whom the book is dedicated. Their unstinting contributions provided far more material on Admiral Lee than I could otherwise have obtained. The account is much richer, especially regarding Lees personal relationships, as the result of the help from those six.

In 1976, after going through a number of sources, I kept coming across the name Evan E. Smith, formerly of Cincinnati. Through a piece of serendipity and a Cincinnati telephone book, I reached Smiths daughter Margaret Ball. She in turn put me in touch with Mrs. Kate Smith. Her husband Evan had started researching a biography of Lee in the early 1960s but died before he could draft much of the manuscript. Evan Smith was a native of Owen County, Kentucky, as was Admiral Lee. During World War I, as an Army sergeant, Smith served overseas. He later became a newspaperman. In 1976 I wrote to Mrs. Smith, who was then living in Versailles, Kentucky. She invited me to come see her and turned over the many items that her husband had amassed. She told me she had wondered what to do with his research and got her answer when she received my letter. She provided her husbands collection of material, notably letters from people who had known Lee early in the twentieth century. By 1976 nearly all were deceased. They provided invaluable memories of their association with Lee.

That same year, I visited Lees sisters-in-law and nephew in Rock Island, Illinois. Margaret Allen, whose sister was Lees wife Mabelle, shared many recollections. She was essentially the family historian and supplied dozens of handwritten pages that contained information available nowhere else. Most welcome were copies of letters that Lee wrote to his fiance/wife and letters she wrote to her sisters. Lees nephew Don Siders was generous in providing material about his uncles career. Don and I became friends. Over the years, he sent one package after another from material that the household had essentially inherited when Mrs. Lee died. He and his wife, Mary, provided kind hospitality on subsequent occasions. On 25 August 2005, the sixtieth anniversary of Lees death, Don and I visited the admirals grave at Arlington National Cemetery.

Two other people who were most helpful were Guilliaem Aertsen III and his wife Mary. Guil was Lees aide and frequent companion from late 1942 until the day Lee died. Guil and I got together for multiple interviews, and he followed up with correspondence. Because he worked closely with Lee throughout most of the last three years of the war, his candid insights were particularly valuable on Lees working style, his likes and dislikes, and his relationships to those with whom he came in contact. Mrs. Aertsen got to know Admiral and Mrs. Lee on a personal basis during the final two months of Lees life and offered intimate vignettes that would have been available from no other source.

One of my most useful interviews for this project was with Admiral Arleigh Burke, who had key observations on Lee, both concerning the 1944 battles and in sending Lee to Maine in 1945. True to his personality, Burke was forceful, candid, and offered valuable insights into how Lee operated. And at times he was feisty. While the tape recorder was running, he said, among other things, Youre probably a historian, and Ive got a couple of phobias about historians. First, by the very nature of the thing, they always look backward, and they ascribeideas that the commander couldnt possibly have had. But the worst thing [is] that you like to match things up on little charts: ship against ship or aircraft against ships. Once the tape recorder was turned off, the admiral switched personas and became a congenial host: Wont you have another dish of ice cream, Paul? For the record, each of us had two dishes of ice cream. Vice Admiral Lloyd M. Mustin worked closely with Admiral Lee during World War II. His marvelously detailed U.S. Naval Institute oral history served as a valuable resource.

Rich Frank, a longtime friend and mentor, has provided a great deal of encouragement over the years and from time to time sent me useful source material. His review of the draft manuscript gave me a great deal of confidence in my approach to the subject. He also drew upon his vast knowledge of the topic, especially on Guadalcanal, to suggest useful word choices and to provide valuable corrections so I could fix errors before they got into print. The father-and-son combination of naval historians Tom and Trent Hone supplied useful advice and information. Trent, like Rich Frank, is a fount of information on the subject areas covered in the book; he also supplied helpful corrections. Another in that category is Dr. Dave Rosenberg, whose knowledge of naval history is seemingly limitless. A valuable suggestion from Dave was that I add a section to the epilogue to describe Lees posthumous legacy to the Navy he served so well. Another source of information and encouragement has been John Lundstrom, who shared useful nuggets about Lees experiences in 1942. Bob Cressman of the Naval History and Heritage Command has urged me for years to get this project done. He and Mark Evans, also of the ship histories section at NHHC, provided valuable information. Dr. Malcolm Muir Jr., a professor of history for many years, supplied a copy of his doctoral dissertation on fast battleships. Thanks go to Samuel Loring Morison for sharing a portion of the wartime diary of his grandfather, Samuel Eliot Morison.