Word: naval
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Born: March 6, 1896, in San Rafael, Calif.; eldest son of the late Rear Admiral Augustus Fechteler, Annapolis '77. His German-born father captained the gunboat Concord at Manila, commanded the Fifth Naval District from 1918 to 1921, when he retired and died soon after. His brother Frank (Annapolis '18) was killed testing his plane for the 1922 Detroit Air Races...
Education: Public schools, Washington, D.C.; U.S. Naval Academy...
Postwar: Went back to a desk after the war, served as Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Personnel, became a four-star admiral in 1950, and then commander of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet. Is recognized as a harddriving, able, "black-shoe" (i.e., non-aviator) BuPers man. Picked as supreme commander of NATO naval forces in the Atlantic. Winston Churchill stirred such fuss against an American commander in the post that Fechteler never served...
Five men were on deck for Forrest Sherman's job as Chief of Naval Operations. Most conspicuous among them-and the Navy's popular choice-was Admiral Arthur W. Radford, boss of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Brilliant, bluntly outspoken, Airman Radford was Airman Sherman's own choice to succeed him two years hence. But popular "Raddy" Radford had led the Navy's revolt against unification in 1949, was anathema to the Air Force, whose giant B-36 bomber he scornfully labeled a "billion-dollar blunder," and had been called a "fancy Dan" by Omar Bradley...
McCormick, who had been Acting Chief since Sherman's death, lacked fleet-command experience, and then there were two. The two: Vice Admiral Richard L. ("Close-In") Conolly, World War II amphibian commander, now head of the Naval War College, and Admiral William M. Fechteler, chief of the Atlantic Fleet...