US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

154 Anaphibiuns Ca??ze To Conquer
indicated to all naval officers, who would open their eyes and see, that the
future held dangers for the United States unless it would stand and fight.
How, when, where, and with whom as allies to fight were not questions
which could be answered unilaterally by the United States Navy, but most
officers had strong opinions.
So, War Planning was rated highly by the Line of the Navy as 1940 came
up over the horizon and many of its best oficers welcomed details therein.
For this reason, as well as a natural interest in political-military matters, and
desire to follow through on the strategical training received at the Naval
War College, Captain Turner was pleased when he was tapped for the
Director of War Plans billet in the Office of Chief of Naval Operations.’
Neither Admiral Harold R. Stark, Chief of Naval Operations in 1940,
nor Rear Admiral Royal E. Ingersoll, his senior assistant, could remember
in detail how Captain Turner came to be picked for the War Plans desk.
Each gave the credit to the other, with an assist to Captain Abel T. Bidwell,
the Director of Officer Personnel in the Bureau of Navigation.’ Both of these
officers used the same expression to summarize their present opinions of the
detail: “The right man.”
On 14 September 1940, Captain Turner was relieved of command of the
A.rtoria by Captain Preston B. Haines of the Class of 1909. He drew his
usual dead horse, this time amounting to $698.37 and departed from the
A~torLz, in Pearl Harbor, for Washington.
The new billet offered a tacit promise of further promotion, since for
18 years, starting with Clarence S. Williams in 1922, all the regular occu-
pants of the Director of War Plans chair except the captain he was about
to relieve, who had not been reached by the 1939 Selection Board, achieved
Flag rank. And most of its occupants had moved on to the upper echelons of
the Navy. There were William R. Shoemaker, William H. Standley, Frank
H. Schofield, Montgomery Meigs Taylor, and more recently William S. Pye
and Royal E. Ingersoll to emulate and surpass.
Captain Turner reported on 19 October 1940. He was selected for Flag
officer by the December 194o Selection Board. By special Presidential fiat,
on 8 January 1941, he assumed the rank, but not the pay, of a rear admiral.3
In October 194o Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox had been in his job
three months, and Admiral Stark had been in his important billet as Chief
‘ Turner.
‘ (a) Interview with Admiral Harold R. Stark, USN (Ret.), 16 Feb. 1962. Hereafter Stark;
(b) Ingersoll.
s FDR to RKT, letter, 8 Jan. 1911.