Word: radford
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...Pink-Cheeked Apollo." In a sense Chicago-born Arthur Radford was bigger than his immediate job even when, as a Navy-struck youngster at an Annapolis prep school, he used to cut morning classes, rent a boat and head across the Severn to watch such naval-aviation pioneers as Jack Towers and Albert C. Read in their weird helmets and goggles, maneuvering Curtiss pushers through the bright Maryland sky. At the Naval Academy Arthur did well in the famous class of 1916 that produced more than 40 admirals and made such a hit at Academy hops that his class Lucky...
Lieutenant-Commander Radford, a bear on training promising youngsters, got a tragic incentive when his brother Charles, an Army pilot, was killed because a student pilot froze to the controls. "He always felt after his brother's death that people shouldn't do things they aren't trained for." a close relative recalls. "I've heard him say the Germans and Russians weeded out the poorly trained by letting them get killed in combat. He feels the weeding out should be done in rigorous training." Adds one of Radford's officers, with a different perspective...
Pilots' Admiral. In dark December 1941 the Navy picked Captain Radford to centralize and expand the Navy's flight training program. After a fast survey Radford announced that the Navy could up its training program from 300 pilots a year to 25,000-and proceeded during the next 16 months to push through just such an expansion. Few were surprised when the Navy promoted him to rear admiral and sent him out to command one of the newly forming carrier attack groups in the Pacific -even though Radford had never commanded a ship...
From his flagship Enterprise, Radford led Carrier Division II through the Gilbert Island landings, improvising air and sea tactics to meet each crisis, running his ships and men with warm command and cold logic. In May 1944 he was hustled back to Washington as Assistant Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Air), where he beat loud drums for the cause of naval aviation and produced the Radford Report, a skillful survey of the delivery, combat use, rotation, repair and relocation of aircraft. Brought back to the Pacific in November 1944, when Japanese naval forces were dwindling fast, Radford was appointed commander...
...Billion-Dollar Blunder." After V-J day, Radford's basic good judgment gave way to blinkered zealotry. He led the Navy fight against 1) unification of the armed forces under a strong Department of Defense, and 2) the Air Force's strategic-bombing concept, symbolized by the intercontinental B-36, which Radford unhappily termed "a billion-dollar blunder." Such was Radford's quiet but sharp-toothed tenacity as he helped lead the famous "Revolt of the Admirals" (1948-49) that the Army's General Omar Bradley, then chairman of the J.C.S., got away with calling...