Halsey’s Enterprise task force began a series of hit-and-run raids against the periphery of the Japanese Empire: the Gilbert and Marshall islands in February, Wake and Marcus in March. Although the early raids inflicted little damage on the enemy, the public welcomed any American offensive—and Halsey made good copy. When “some drunken correspondent,” in Halsey’s words, changed “Bill” Halsey to “Bull,” the name stuck. Certainly he did not shun publicity. He enjoyed playing the seadog, wearing a sou’wester with his face in the wind or donning an absurdly long-billed cap with starched khakis.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in World War II magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

Halsey’s command of the famous Doolittle Raid against Tokyo in April 1942 powerfully enhanced his public image (in some quarters it was even the “Halsey–Doolittle” Raid). Then, in May, just as the biggest battle of the war was shaping up, Halsey contracted advanced dermatitis. Frustrated beyond reckoning, he was “beached” in Hawaii.

Nimitz’s code breakers learned that month of Japan’s plan to seize Midway Atoll, only 1,100 miles from Oahu, making a counterstroke essential. Nimitz asked Halsey who should take over Task Force 16, and his response was immediate: Rear Adm. Raymond Spruance, who had commanded Halsey’s screen for months. Enterprise and Hornet sailed for Midway in late May, followed by Yorktown with Task Force 17.

Spruance, a nonaviator, relied on Halsey’s staff for aviation expertise and was not well served. The chief of staff was Capt. Miles Browning, an egotistical airman who had lost touch with advancing technology. When the pilots of the Enterprise air group rightly questioned his order for an excessively long-range strike, Browning interpreted it as a coup. Spruance backed the pilots, leading Browning to throw a fit and sulk in his cabin. Nevertheless, though Task Force 17 returned minus Yorktown and a destroyer, Spruance won a historic victory.

In mid-October 1942 Nimitz selected Halsey, still recovering from dermatitis, to relieve Vice Adm. Robert L. Ghormley as commander of the South Pacific area. Ghormley was an old friend of Halsey’s, but however painful the turnover, Halsey immediately set to work in New Caledonia, along with many of his Enterprise staffers—including the erratic Captain Browning.

As South Pacific commander, Halsey was responsible for much more than Guadalcanal. While the island necessarily remained his focus, he inherited a vast area east of the 160th meridian.

After ten months of war Halsey’s professional instincts had only sharpened. He saw the war as a gut-level conflict and ordered his priorities accordingly. Reportedly shortly after landing at Nouméa he declared, “If it helps kill Japs it’s important. If it doesn’t help kill Japs it’s not important.”

ithin days of Halsey’s arrival, the Japanese navy and army launched a rare combined operation, a truly joint effort to secure Guadalcanal once and for all. While the Japanese army strove to capture Henderson Field, the emperor’s “sea eagles” rose from four carriers well at sea. The outcome became the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.

The American commander’s exhortation to his forces was vintage Halsey: “Strike, repeat, strike!”

The carrier engagement on October 26, 1942, resulted in an American tactical defeat: Hornet was sunk in exchange for damage of two Japanese flattops. But the outcome benefited the larger campaign since events at sea did not alter the situation ashore. Henderson Field remained under management of the U.S. Marines, and Japanese carrier aircraft losses gave the Americans air superiority in the subsequent showdown.

As the sanguinary Guadalcanal campaign approached its peak, Halsey committed as many assets as he could scrape together—land, sea, and air. It proved barely enough. The slugfest known as the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal was fought and won on November 12–15. The combined surface and air action proved costly for both sides: nine American warships and thirty-six aircraft versus two Japanese battleships, four other warships, eleven transports, and sixty-four aircraft. But Tokyo finally had enough: within weeks the emperor’s forces sought to extricate themselves from the sinkhole of Guadalcanal.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to