i can find fault with halsey, but he has enough redeeming qualities for me to look past his faults. he correctly surmised that invading the island of peleliu would be a waste of manpower.
Admiral Halsey was NOT a yes man.
No half ass military commander from a rifle platoon LT to a five star general surrounds himself with yes men. No competent President/CnC surrounds himself with yes men except maybe for Obama which explains why he's been a complete failure as CnC.
>" One of the most controversial operations of World War II in the Pacific was the 1944 invasion of Peleliu. A military historian has analyzed the circumstances and the personalities involved, trying to answer a question that has nagged veterans such as the one pictured here for more than 54 years.
Few World War II veterans of the 1st Marine Division and the Army's 81st Division ever made sense of the awful sacrifices it cost to wrest Peleliu from a stubborn foe entrenched in the badlands of the Umurbrogol, a moonscape known as "Bloody Nose Ridge." Many survivors consider Peleliu's worst legacy to be that their fleet commander, Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., had recommended canceling the landing at the last moment—only to have the suggestion rejected by Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commanding the Pacific Fleet and the Pacific Ocean Areas (CinCPac/CinCPOA). Nimitz has since been excoriated for this decision. "CinCPac here made one of his rare mistakes," observed Samuel Eliot Morison in 1963. Three decades later, naval historian Nathan Miller described the event as "Nimitz's major mistake of the war."
Yet Nimitz made few rash decisions in 44 months as CinCPac/CinCPOA. He picked discerning staff officers, sought the advice of tactical commanders, and hearkened to his outspoken boss, Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Fleet (CominCh), and Chief of Naval Operations. How did Nimitz reach his decision about Peleliu, and upon what information did he base his judgment?
The 72-hour period during 12 to 15 September 1944, essentially the three days leading to D-Day at Peleliu, was a time of significant westward movement by U.S. forces. As one attack force converged on Peleliu and Angaur in the southern Palaus, another embarked in Hawaii for Yap and Ulithi in the Western Carolines, the second phase of Operation Stalemate, and yet a third amphibious unit advanced on Morotai in the Moluccas. Complex as they were, each operation had the principal objective of paving the way for even larger campaigns soon to follow—MacArthur's return to the Philippines, Nimitz's conquest of Formosa or (as some planners were beginning to suggest) Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
The key players were scattered widely. King and the other Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) were engaged in the Octagon Conference in Quebec with their British counterparts and Sir Winston Churchill. Nimitz held forth in his headquarters in Pearl Harbor. General Douglas MacArthur, counterpart to Nimitz as commander-in-chief of the Southwest Pacific Area (CinCSowesPac), sailed with the Morotai invasion force. And Halsey, less than three weeks in command of his newly designated Third Fleet, strode the flag bridge of the USS New Jersey (BB-62) in the throes of indecision.
Halsey had just arrived in the Philippine Sea, linking up with Vice Admiral Marc A. Mitscher, commanding the fleet's principal striking element, Task Force 38..."<
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What Was Nimitz Thinking? | U.S. Naval Institute
