US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

Amphibians Came To Corzquer
work. He drove himself without mercy, and he expected and
demanded the same of those around him. I never saw him relax or
take his ease.”
c. General Holland M. (Howling Mad) Smith, Turner’s able counterpart
in the Marines writes: “Kelly Turner is aggressive, a mass of
energy and a relentless task master. The punctilious exterior hides a
terrific determination. He can be plain ornery. He wasn’t called
‘Terrible Turner’ without reason.
“He commanded the FIFTH AMPHIBIOUS FORCE, while I
commanded the Expeditionary Troops which went along with the
Navy and our partnership, though stormy, spelled hell in big red
letters to the Japanese.”
As a young officer, many years his junior, I had not heard of Kelly Turner
before World War 11. His name hove in sight for me with his well-executed
landing on Guadalcanal and subsequent bitter defeat in the Japanese surprise
night attack of what we then called the first battle of Save—and of which
as part of my duties on Admiral Nimitz’s staff, I prepared the CINCPAC
action report. The same questions about this battle that Admiral Dyer so well
explains without bias, but with care to present all of the evidence, likewise
deeply concerned us at the time. Yet I think most agreed with the decision
that the defeat did not mean that Admiral Turner would be relieved.
In November 1942 on a trip to Guadalcanal and elsewhere in the Pacific
related to training, battle lessons, and improvements in ordnance and gun-
nery, I first met Admiral Turner in his flagship at Noumea. Subsequently
I rode with him in his flagship, as in the Gilberts operation, or visited him
from another ship in later mighty amphibious assaults including Okinawa
that swept awesomely across the Pacific like successive typhoons. I saw him
often at Pearl Harbor in the planning stages of these far-reaching campaigns
as we and his staff worked closely on bombardment plans, shore fire control
parties, tactics, training, and other facets of amphibious operations like
underwater demolition teams. The initial team developed late in the planning
for the Gilberts operations evolving from intelligence on boat mines close
inshore and the problem of reefs interfering with movement to the beaches.
The first makeshift team, hurriedly assembled, served such good purpose in
the Gilberts operation that a full program sprang from it.
No man could have been more courteous, gentlemanly and kind than
Admiral Turner was to me, a visitor and observer in his domain. At the
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