Word: manly
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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During most of his tour as CNO he had been an unpopular figure-a man his superiors considered to be "safe" and whom Navy extremists considered a puppet. When he testified before the House Armed Services Committee (TIME, Oct. 24) the picture was dramatically reversed. Admiral Denfeld had broken with his civilian superiors and lined himself up with the Navy's rebels...
Last week, as news of his removal spread, officers crowded his office to shake his hand. A delegation of 250 enlisted men trooped in and a chief petty officer, acting as spokesman, said: "If they can do this to a man like you, what is to happen to us? ... We feel that the Navy is shot ..." Replied Denfeld fervently: "No service and no individual will stop the Navy." Later in the week, when four-star Louis Denfeld took his seat at the Navy-Notre Dame football game in Baltimore, more than 3,000 midshipmen waved their caps and cheered wildly...
There was undoubtedly truth in both charges. But neither Vinson, Denfeld nor any other Admiral should have been surprised. The Navy's rebels had gone too far, and their topmost man, Admiral Denfeld himself, had taken a stand which clearly disqualified him to work any longer with his civilian superiors and his opposite numbers in the Army and Air Force. The rebels had ruthlessly and violently attacked, not only the Air Force and its professional integrity but also the whole Joint Chiefs of Staff concept of strategy. They had plainly implied that they would remain insubordinate to the bitter...
There was little doubt as to the man the Administration wanted as Denfeld's successor. He was Vice Admiral Forrest Sherman who, as Deputy Vice Chief of Naval Operations, had committed the Navy sin of joining with the Air Force's Lieut. General Larry Norstad as one of the original authors of unification. When integration came, Forrest Sherman was bundled out of Washington to become commander of the Sixth Task Fleet in the Mediterranean. This week Secretary Matthews smuggled him home on a civilian airline to offer him Denfeld...
Admiral Sherman was an unusual man -brilliant, modest and, at 53, one of the youngest officers ever proposed as Chief of Naval Operations. His World War II record was impressive. He commanded the aircraft carrier Wasp until she was shot out from beneath him in the Solomons in 1942. During the final years of the war he was Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz' "brain"; he helped plan the great sweep across the Pacific from Tarawa to Okinawa...