Sea Control - Sea Control 284 - Planning the Pacific War and Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner

Episode Date: October 14, 2021

Links1. The Amphibians Came to Conquer, by Admiral George Dyer, GPO 1972.2. Richmond Kelly Turner: Planning the Pacific War, Navy History and Heritage Command, 2021. 3. The Two Ocean War: A Short History of the US Navy in the Second World War, by Samuel Eliot Morrison, Naval Institute Press, 2007.

Hey, folks, Jared here. This week we have John Frerichs hosting, and he's joined by Rear Admiral Tom Williams and two guests from Navy History and Heritage Command, Drs. Tim Francis and Sean Woodford, and they'll be discussing their monograph on Admiral Richmond, Kelly Turner, and planning the Pacific War. This episode was edited and produced by Joshua Gruver. Finally, I want to take the opportunity to recommend our partners in the SimSec Podcast Network, the Bilge Pumps. You can find Alex, Jamie, Drack, and Apollo Viral and Brew Bottles wherever you download your podcasts. On that note, I'll turn it over to Kimber's men.

You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Guten tag, shipmates, and welcome back. Today, we will discuss a recent monograph published by the Navy Naval History and Heritage Command called Richard Kelly Turner, Planning the Pacific War. Today, we are fortunate to be joined by Rear Admiral Tom Williams, currently serving as Director of Plans, Policy, and Integration in the N5 at the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, and two of the authors and historians that contributed to the monograph, Dr. Francis and Dr. Woodford. Gentlemen, can each of you please give a brief introduction and your role in the project? Hey, John. Good morning. Tom Williams. I'm the Director of Plans, Policy, and Integration, as you introduced me very kindly. I've been affiliated with the History and Heritage Command throughout my operational tours, back to being a lieutenant. And I've also, as a surface warfare officer, been using history throughout my career as a means to learn the lessons.

And Richmond Kelly Turner was an interesting character because he had the job of the war plans director, which is the equivalent or the analog of my current job 80 years ago as we transitioned from 1940 to 41. So I looked at this as a great opportunity to learn a little about about the challenges he saw as we transitioned into World War Two and how I can apply those lessons today. And that's why I reached out to Tim and the team at History and Heritage Command to be able to to help me and my team think about this problem in the modern context. Morning, John. This is Tim Francis. I'm the senior advisory historian to the director of the History and Archives Division at the Naval History Command. I've been there for about, it's almost embarrassing to say, almost 25 years. I started off as a lowly historian and I've worked my way up the chain. Took a couple of breaks.

I'm also a, because I'm a senior chief in the Navy Reserve and did a couple of deployments to Iraq in between there. But right now I'm leading the histories advisories group. And when the Admiral contacted us, we jumped on the opportunity to help out OPNAV. I wrote two of the chapters in the book. Dr. Woodford did the majority of the work. I was more in the lane of dealing with HHC's leadership, working with the editors, and sort of shepherding the overall project. And thank you for the opportunity for letting us get on here this morning. Good morning, John. Yeah, my name is Sean Woodford. I'm one of the three authors who collaborated on writing this pamphlet. I'm a historian in the OPNAV support section of the Histories Branch at Naval History and Heritage Command. I'm a relative newcomer. I've only been with the command since 2019. My previous work focused on the history of U.S. nuclear weapon development and special operations forces history. I'd like to mention our third author, Dr. Peter Luebke, who unfortunately couldn't join us here today.

He works with Dr. Francis and the advisory group. And the three of us developed a very effective collaboration. It was a fun project to work on, and Dr. Francis and Dr. Luebke were great collaborators. Gentlemen, thank you for those introductions. The monograph was recently published during the summer of 2021 and will be linked in the show notes on the CIMSEC website. This historical study struck an interest with me on several different facets. From my time as a midshipman to my most recent school experience at the Marine Corps School of Advanced Warfighting, Admiral Turner has been an important topic of study in naval history.

I was excited to see the work that your team did on this topic, and I believe will serve as a nice addition to educating both the past, present, and future Naval enthusiasts. Before we begin, I'll remind the listeners that all opinions expressed are our own and not reflective of any institutions with which we might otherwise be associated. Gentlemen, before we dive into the publication itself, for any of the listeners who might not be aware of the Naval History and Heritage Command, can one of you describe the organization's purpose and scope? Yes. So the Naval History and Heritage Command is the primary historical enterprise for the Navy. It's composed of many activities. It includes the Histories Branch, the Navy Department Library, Operational Archives, Art and Artifact Collections, 10 museums around the country, the USS Constitution Repair Facility in Boston, and the Historic Submarine Nautilus in Groton. The bulk of our staff, 300 historical professionals, is located in Washington, D.C., and that includes historians, archivists, librarians, curators, and even underwater archaeologists. Sean and I are in the history section of the command.

The historians take historical knowledge and translate it into products and papers and webpages that are useful for the Navy, for the public and the Navy today. I appreciate that. And I'll admit my own ignorance. I had no idea how far reaching and expansive the command and some of the different capabilities and opportunities that they present. So I appreciate that. And I would encourage any of the listeners to kind of dig in and see the myriad of different things that the command does provide. Admiral Williams, for you, you mentioned it in your introduction, but can you talk about your role at ALPNV and how you came to be part of this project? Yeah, thanks again. As a director of Plans, Policies and Integration, today I provide the CNO in his role as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff advice on maritime aspects of joint plans and policies. and obviously plans work as you well know is a never-ending effort and the privilege to be named as the N5 and with many of the jobs that I do and I mentioned you know I try to use history as a little bit of a touchstone to learn a little bit about the job I'm going to do the challenges

I may have and I've done it in previous tours I'm privileged to afloat to be the Commodore Deseron 23 which is Raleigh-Burke squadron and also having worked with the History and Heritage Command. Actually, back in the years, as a young lieutenant, as I was going out to grad school, I had the privilege to be named a Samuel L. Morrison Scholar, and the History and Heritage Command supported me as I was doing some work in international relations. So, as I was getting prepared to come in to work for CNO in this job about 15 months ago, I had read Morrison's work, Two Ocean War, and then some of the other of his work on World War II, and as I was in my Deseron 23 tour, I'd had this sort of theme, particularly in amphibious warfare and the

development of amphibious warfare, and was fascinated by Kelly Turner and his role. And then as I was getting ready to come into this job, I found out that Kelly Turner was in this war plans division, not the same as today's N5, but also that there had been a biography written by Admiral Dyer, a former naval director, director of naval history in the 60s right as as admiral turner's was uh he actually passed away uh during the writing of a history about him it's called the amphibians came to conquer i contacted admiral cox and tim's team and i just was looking for the hey is this the most definitive history on on admiral turner and his his experiences in the war and it was in in the process of talking with the with nhhc i

I also found out that Admiral Turner's papers were actually at the archives there. I'm coming to you right now from the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., so I live literally about 500 yards, maybe less than that, 250 yards from the archives. So it was a unique opportunity for me to walk down the hill, spend a little time in the archive, reading Admiral Turner's papers, reading the history. And it struck me that there's a unique opportunity, again, to take this history, work with the professionals at Naval History, Air Engine Command, and turn it into something that is really valuable. And as I was coming back after a morning in the archives reading Admiral Turner's papers, it struck me that, hey, if we could get something that was a little bit more current and that sort of top 10 ideas, what did Admiral Turner learn? I was fascinated from the idea of, hey, he was someone in the role sitting in a headquarters working for Chief of Naval Operations before the war started. And he went out to execute the war and the campaign that he executed in Southeast Asia or through the South Pacific was much different than the plan probably that he developed at the War College and going further. So what could he learn? What did he learn? What can we learn today from the difference between what he did in 1940-41 to what he executed in the war?

So I thought that was pretty important. And as as N5, one of my other roles is I sponsor operational planners for the Navy. And I have several operational planners that work in my team for on the war plan portfolio. So, again, I wanted to bring history alive and, you know, really use this as a as an opportunity to help help current planners think about the challenges in war since there were some great lessons learned. So, you know, my my my hat's off to the team, Tim's team and Sean and Pete, because they really over the last the genesis of the project really removed pretty quickly. It was about 12 months from conception to publication. And we work pretty closely with them. And I have Lieutenant Commander Jason Lancaster, who's a who's a contributor to SimSec that helped us get get the project rolling and stay connected with a team in the NHAC. And then Commander John Chauvin, who also is a historian who, before Jason, was helping me ship this project. So credit goes to the team as we move forward here.

But that's why I saw important links between what I do today as the Director of Plans, Policy, and Integration and the links that Admiral Turner had as the Director of World Plans Division. How can we use the great team at NHHC and the great resources to help train today's planners for the problems that may be in the future? Sir, thank you for that. And 12 months is an absolutely impressive turnaround and timeline for the quality of product that you guys put out. So that that that absolutely impresses me. For the listeners, if you haven't read Two Ocean War by Morrison, I would argue one of the more prolific naval historians is out there. We'll also capture that and send it within the show notes as well. Gentlemen, for any of you, for any of our listeners who have not heard of Admiral Kelly Turner, which I don't think is possible.

But can you provide a brief life synopsis, something I'll encourage everyone to rush out and download your publication in order to learn more? Yeah, this is Sean Woodford. Turner's kind of a zealot-like figure in the history of World War II, but primarily his major role was as the Pacific Fleet's primary amphibious force commander. He planned and led nine consecutive fully successful amphibious assault operations between 1942 and 1945 from Guadalcanal to Okinawa, helping guide U.S. forces to victory over Japan. He was born in 1885, and he graduated from the Naval Academy in 1908. He initially specialized in gunnery, but he received flight training in 1927. He attended the Naval War College in 1935 and then served on the faculty there until 1938. After a sea command, he was assigned to direct OPNAV's war plans division in 1940, first under CNO Admiral Harold Stark and then under Stark's successor, Admiral Ernest King.

In his OPNAV war plan role, Turner had a major hand in shaping the Navy's initial strategy in World War II. Then in mid-1942, King detached Turner to go down and execute the war plans that he had helped devise as the commander of the South Pacific Amphibious Force at Guadalcanal. Marine General Holland Smith put it well, writing that Turner was, quote, aggressive, a mass of energy, and a relentless taskmaster. And Smith wasn't alone in thinking this. Turner's contemporaries remarked that he had an incredible intellect, able to see both the trees and the forest. He understood both the larger picture and the smallest details. Turner kind of flies below the radar when people think about World War II in the Pacific. He was absolutely central to the amphibious campaigns from start to finish, but their success is why many people don't know about him.

The emphasis on Pacific War history is usually on Midway and the dramatic aircraft carrier battles or the bloody island fighting after the Marine landings. So there's typically less attention paid to logistics or the nuts and bolts of amphibious warfare. So Turner goes a bit unnoticed, but there's definitely a lot we can learn from him. And Admiral Williams, you know, very clearly zeroed in on Turner's importance and came to us with the project. And it didn't take too much incentive to light a fire under us to to follow up on it. Sean, I distinctly appreciate that response. You know, I distinctly remember my first exposure to Admiral Turner. I was tasked with reading portions of the Fleet Marine Force reference publication, 12-TAC-109-TAC-I.

It was called The Amphibians Came to Conquer for a Project on Amphibious Operations in the Pacific. In addition to this publication, there are numerous other books, papers, and monographs on Admiral Turner as well. He's definitely a legend within the Marine Corps from that perspective. What was the goal of your team in writing this new publication, and who was the audience you guys were trying to reach? From my perspective, it was really, again, to focus on the current planners, even though there's a body of doctrine and processes which really were derived from the campaign experiences of World War II. Sometimes our planning schools and our planning operations don't necessarily put them into the planning process, particularly in the Navy. I think the Marine Corps and the Marine Corps team has got a planning culture. The Navy's culture is somewhat, you know, detached from not only the art of planning, but also the practical aspects of planning.

And it's sometimes very tactical and we've lost that campaign level of thinking. So that, again, was my goal was targeted at current planners, developing new planners. And even this initial item, which was my team, is trying to reinvigorate a sense of the urgency necessary to develop planners who understand today's plans. They can go out and advise commanders or, in some case, maybe future commanders that have to execute plans. But also the idea that, hey, here's some easy thumb rules. You don't have to dig into a deep history or you don't have to dig into a deep doctrinal pub. But here are some top, again, the top 10 to help you just kind of reset your thinking as you develop plans or your working plans or modifications to plans with your commander or as a commander. That's my kind of thinking as, hey, this is going to be very practical.

It's almost written in, and I appreciate it, NHJC, as we develop this kind of in a very short case study-like with some discussion questions at the end. to have that kind of conversation for professional development in the Navy's case around the wardrobe table or in a schoolhouse. So so very practical and very polite history. It was my thinking and my ass of the NHAC team. John, this is this, Tim, from the from the historian's perspective, when Admiral Williams brought this project to us and bought these ideas, We latched onto it because we're subject matter experts on the World War II campaigns, but we have less, obviously, expertise on the current Navy and current Navy planning. But we could see that there would be elements of planning in the South Pacific that would be relevant for today. For obvious reasons, you have the tyranny of distance issue in the Pacific.

You have perhaps a contested, what do you do in a contested logistics environment, that sort of thing. And so when Shad said we jumped on this, he was right. We totally thought that this would be a great opportunity to kind of have people with two different sets of expertise produce something that was greater than the sum of its parts. Gentlemen, thank you for that. And I'll tell you up front that I think you guys knocked it out of the park. I shared before we started the recording, but during the most recent Naval Large-Scale Exercise 21, this exact book came up and I started passing it around to some of the planners as we were located down with and co-located in Naples with NAVIER and NAVAF and Marine Forces Europe

in Africa. And it really did help facilitate some of the conversation and, you know, take a different perspective and look at some of the problems that we were trying to solve in current times. I'd like to explore now a few of the chapters that really stuck out to me. And we'll start with chapter four, which was build plans around a realistic assessment of resources. There were really some gold nuggets throughout the chapter, but your description about how the different services approach war planning with regards to resources was really striking because I see a lot of similarities and differences today. Can you describe to the listeners the tension you guys wrote about?

Yes. The basic tension is that Turner and the Navy planners, which is a lot like today, thought largely in terms of the fight tonight while the Army didn't. You know, the Navy has always been forward deployed, and it's always going to be the first line of defense. And when you're a warship at sea on the front line, you could be in a fight in an hour. And so Turner and the planning shop, they were writing plans for the Navy that were executable with the forces at hand. So there was a fleet in being. You would use it immediately. As Turner himself wrote, he could draft a valid naval war plan suitable for emergency use and have that get chopped up the chain and workable.

The Army, in contrast, is different, especially at that time. It was a very small peacetime garrison type Army. It had a tough time expanding and mobilizing in peacetime. You really needed national mobilization to be put into place by the president and Congress, which, of course, didn't really happen until 1914. And so, I mean, the good thing is the Army was designed around cadres that could be rapidly expanded. But again, you couldn't execute that until you had a national emergency. So that that kind of difference between pulling the trigger immediately and having to mobilize before you get in the fight is the tension between the two services. Sir, thank you for that. And, you know, again, some of the similarities today between, I think, Marine Corps force design 2030, Navy fleet design, you know, and as we're writing our current plans, and there's always a temptation and desire to account for some of those future capabilities that we're looking towards, but also the need to write resource informed plans based on capabilities that, you know, you can fight with tonight, as you said.

So I definitely saw a lot of similarities and a lot of things that I think current planners could pull forward into the development of plans as we look forward today. For Chapter 7, next chapter, I'd like to explore achieve unity of command if possible, strive for unity of effort if not. Can you describe some of the challenges that Admiral Turner has with regards to achieving unity of command and if not unity of effort? Thank you, John. Yeah, this is Sean. That was that was a chapter I wrote. Yeah, the difficulties achieving unity of command and unity of effort were particularly a challenge at the outset for the initial operation, the invasion of Guadalcanal in 1942, Operation Watchtower. Turner was a task force commander. The amphibious forces were constituted as a task force under a joint task force commander, which was Vice Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, who also commanded the carrier air support for the operation.

And that joint task force was under the command of the theater commander, which was Vice Admiral Robert Gormley, who commanded the South Pacific Theater. Now, from Turner's perspective, I sort of identified three major challenges he had to deal with. The first one was just the C2 architecture, the design of the architecture to start with. After the fall of the Dutch East Indies in early 1942, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in collaboration with the British, set up a dual command system in the Pacific, dividing the Pacific theater between Admiral Nimitz's Pacific Ocean area and General MacArthur's Southwest Pacific area. So right at the outset, you have a dual Army-Navy command system. And Turner actually had a role in further

designing Nimitz's Pacific Ocean area. In March of 1942, King was looking at conducting operations and the Solomons. And Turner, as director of war plans, warned him that it would require a campaign to establish air and sea superiority in the area in order to carry out that sort of operation. So King subsequently divided Nimitz's theater into three geographical areas, the North, Central, and South Pacific area. And he named Gormley to command the South Pacific area. So you have this divided command and control between the army. You have the three command areas. I mean, on the surface it wouldn't be a problem but one of the biggest problems was just simply geographic distance and time and communication um there weren't a lot of uh a lot of time for face-to-face

communication when gormley uh was named to command the south pacific area he came to washington dc first conferred with king and turner then he flew out to the uh the pacific uh to pearl harbor to confer with nimitz and the pacific fleet staff and the second biggest challenge that turner had to deal with. It was actually some odd orders that Nimitz gave to Gormley. Gormley was going to be the South Pacific theater commander, but Nimitz gave him an instruction essentially saying that the naval task forces that would be assigned to Gormley's theater would be formed by Nimitz and that Gormley was not to interfere with their orders or composition unless it was absolutely necessary. Now, this is kind of an odd set of instructions. It was Richard Frank pointed us out

in his Guadalcanal campaign history that likely inhibited Gormley in his conduct as a theater commander. It's kind of odd to have forces placed at your disposal, but you're not allowed to, you know, order them or change their composition. So the way that played out for Turner, was the Guadalcanal operation was ordered to begin at the beginning of July with a 1 August target date. That slipped to 7 August, but it only gave Gormley's command a month to prepare and execute the operation. So there was only an opportunity for one face-to-face meeting for all the commanders and the staffs, and that took place on the 30th of July during the rehearsal for the amphibious operation.

There were a number of problems that had cropped up in the planning and preparation. One of the big ones was how long Fletcher's carriers were going to stick around and provide air support for Turner's amphibious force to unload. There was a direct disagreement between Turner and Fletcher over this. Fletcher would only stick around 48 hours.

Turner wanted him to stay four days. But unfortunately, at that meeting, Grumley could not attend. He had sent his chief of staff to adjudicate But he could not make the call, so Fletcher's views prevailed. So when the task force sailed for Guadalcanal, Turner still did not have resolution on whether or not he was going to have air cover, which meant that he would have to decide whether or not he was going to remain and unload after Fletcher's carriers departed.

Those problems probably could have been settled had Gormley been physically there or if they'd had more time to work them out. But the aggressive timeline just meant that that wasn't an option. So those three primarily resulted in the sort of the discontinuity and effort and command at Guadalcanal. And those were all issues that Turner worked hard to resolve in later operations. And those seams in the unity of command and effort were closed pretty rapidly after that. John, thank you for that. And I really appreciated the different perspective of Guadalcanal and Operation Watchtower. And it was nice to see how you built that thread as you continued through

the subsequent operations. As you said, really demonstrated kind of lessons being applied and learned. It was definitely a fascinating read and really appreciated that chapter. Gentlemen, during the course of your research, was there anything that surprised you? Something that you didn't know or anticipate as you guys were going through? Yeah, John, I think you can, from the conversation that Tim and Sean have already put through some of the chapters, how relevant and continued as I went through the history and read Amphibians to Conquer and went through the papers, how relevant to those challenges that R.K. Turner and Howland Smith had to deal with to today's operational challenges and problems.

You know, the geography hasn't changed that much in this 80 years. The geopolitics may have shifted a little bit, but the things that they dealt with, we're dealing with today in many ways. And just some of the personalities, again, as you read through the history and you understand, something that surprised me that there was one young Brigadier General, Dwight Diaz and I, that was working with then just recently promoted Admiral Turner to work on the Joint War Plans Board. And you see these themes that run throughout the history and discussion. Even to the point where, you know, Kelly Turner had a command of a cruiser that was sent on a mission to Japan before he was assigned to the War College. And had a deep understanding and appreciation for the challenges of the Japanese Empire and what was become the primary adversary that he fought.

So that deep understanding and appreciation for that, for an adversary that then he was applying to the challenges of the 1940-41 period before Pearl Harbor. And, you know, some of the debates that were going on to the that were technical in the operational sense, they were strategic in 1940-41. And I think I think Tim talked to that, you know, the conversation about hemispheric defense and how we're going to deal with the challenges and who are the adversaries are going to be. versus an offensive navy uh and again kelly turner became the the amphibious commander because of his thinking that he did in 1940 and particularly early 41 you have practical realistic plans uh and again just again the relevance and the and the resonance for for today is what continues to surprise me and that's why again really pleased to team with uh with uh with with with folks here And as I note, that no matter how many challenges that Kelly Turner dealt with and overcame, as they were working their way from 1942 to 43 to 44, people remember Dwight D. Eisenhower, obviously, for who he was.

We in the Navy certainly appreciate who Kelly Turner was. But at the end of the war, he was a four-star commander going to be planning the invasion of Japan, where we had just done that in Europe. And just, again, those connections that happened in the 3940 that were important for the relationships to be able to execute multiple campaigns simultaneously across the globe. Just, again, fascinating how relevant it is to today's challenges. Hey, John, this is Tim. I would say one of the things that surprised me that I hadn't really thought of too deeply. I mean, I knew of it ahead of time, but I hadn't thought of it too deeply, was simply how large the South Pacific is, right? And how you're getting supplies and ships from San Diego or to the Panama Canal to Numea in Australia and the Solomons.

And I remember distinctly when we were talking about some of the chapter organizations, looking at the Bureau of Yards and Docks, which I suppose would be NAVSEA these days, they actually wrote a history, which was called Building the Navy's Bases, that you needed both for ships to stop and refuel. and even more importantly you needed air bases sort of lily pad air bases so that uh bombers and fighters could uh could basically fly all the way to the south pacific from the west coast when we when i dug into those for the for chapter six which was allow for the tyranny of time and distance i was struck by how significant the decisions made in the first month or two after Pearl Harbor are for the for the Solomon campaigns so there's a an almost immediate decision to reinforce EMEA and to to build those to build or expand a chain of business like New Zealand actually owned a couple airfields in the South Pacific that we could

obviously use the U.S. could obviously use um and but all those need to be expanded uh repaired uh they on some of the islands the u.s army and navy cbs go in and build temporary airfields sometimes in as little as two weeks and just they're absolutely critical for building up the sort of reserve infrastructure so that you can launch operation watchtower we wouldn't have had the Watchtower invasion, if they had not built and improved those bases. And then as I was putting that chapter together, I began to realize that, you know, in a lot of ways, the Japanese had the same problem. You know, their closest base was at Truk, which was way, way far to the northeast in

the Central Pacific. So they had the same issue where their timetables were also very short, and they also had problems with logistics and getting into the theater. And I think the last point to make here is, you know, the strategic surprise caused by Pearl Harbor had sort of set the U.S. on our heels, and the Japanese had the initiative. But they got bogged down in serious fighting in that huge extensive arc from Southeast Asia through the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, where they rapidly conquered this huge swath of territory. But that took, you know, almost all their efforts. So they're delayed by many months before they can make any significant efforts into the South Pacific. And I just found it fascinating that if the U.S. had been a little slower in getting off the mark to getting those bases expanded, or if the Japanese had been faster, then the entire campaign in the South Pacific could have been very different. Anyway, that was probably one of the biggest things that I was struck by.

John, this is Sean. As a relative newcomer to Navy history, what surprised me in the process of writing this was how much I had to rely on the Army official histories to tell the Navy side of the strategic story before and during the early part of the Pacific War. That, I think, is a story that remains to be fully told. I think the Navy missed a big opportunity in deciding not to write and publish their own official histories of the war. Samuel Elliott Morrison's multi-volume history of the Navy, it's an excellent piece of work. It's tour de force, but it wasn't an official history. It was something that Morrison published privately, and it focuses primarily on the operational tactical aspects of the Navy's fight during the war. The Army's official histories treat the Navy's perspective fairly, I think. I don't think they're overly biased. But what they don't do is they don't delve very deeply into the Navy's thinking, into the leadership and staff's thinking. That was something that Turner was really deeply involved with. And we saw bits and pieces of that in Turner's papers, which are in NHHC's archival holdings.

But I think there's still a lot of room for somebody to go back and take a deeper look at the Navy's perspectives, particularly in the Pacific War and the early part of the war, which is, you know, Tim mentioned that there were a lot of decisions that were made early on that had big effects later. Sean, thank you for that. And I absolutely agree that the Army histories, as well as the Marine Corps histories, definitely very tactically and operationally focused. And there is that gap or void in terms of, I think, strategically and high operationally looking at, you know, some of the decision making and what fed into that decision making. And Tim, for you, I wanted to go back and, you know, just the expansiveness of the Pacific. I absolutely agree to the listeners, the maps and the graphics and the actual publication are fantastic. And I think they do a really good job at kind of highlighting that tyranny of distance as you start looking, looking across. And I'll throw one highlight out to one of the other SimSec authors, Ryan Hilger, recently

published a fantastic piece on service support squadron 10, which was critical in terms of to helping support and develop that architecture to be able to project the forces across the Pacific. Gentlemen, our time is coming to an end. I wanted to thank you for taking the time to discuss today. But before we wrap, where can listeners connect with you on social media and what are you guys working on next? John, so NHHC has a Facebook and a LinkedIn account, Naval History and Heritage Command, or at USN History for Twitter. We also have a website, history.navy.mil. You know, people can actually call our public affairs office at 202-433-7880.

They can also email us at nhhcpublicaffairs at navy.mil. And we'll get all this up on, I think you'll put all this up on the website with the podcast. But we also have on our website a PDF copy, soft copy of the booklet itself that's free. So people can come here and search for Richmond Kelly Turner and find it there. I think our immediate next step is that we are going to we are running a panel at the 2021 Mullen Naval History Symposium held at the Naval Academy in Annapolis on 23-24 September. and we'll be discussing the booklet and the papers and the the efforts a lot like we just did on this podcast and and then for future efforts after that we're we're juggling options so unsure where it's going to go next but appreciate the opportunity to come and talk

on this podcast. Tim, Sean, Admiral Williams, my sincere appreciation for coming on the show today. To the listeners, highly recommend you check out the historical monograph. Definitely a fantastic

and interesting read and very applicable as we look to tackling the challenges of today and into tomorrow. Until next time, Guten Tag! © BF-WATCH TV 2021

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