Thank you.
My name is Jerry Kelly. I'm with the Admiral
Nimitz Museum.
We have the pleasure today to be here with Vice
Admiral Pete.
He's going to tell us about his experiences in 1943.
Admiral Pete, your video history is already at
the Naval Institute,
so what I would like to do is concentrate on
your recollections in 1,943.
From the symposia this morning, we've talked
about how the war was already won with 50 years
of hindsight.
But I would like to know what was your feeling,
the ensign on the line, so to speak.
Was it apparent to you at the time that we had won?
Well, Vince, I'm glad to be here, but I suppose
for the 50th anniversary of anything, you're
glad to be anywhere.
And at the Institute, it's an audio history,
not a video history.
So this is a new experience for me, and I'm
looking forward to it.
I guess as I look back on my experiences in
1943, you have to realize that I had just
come out of the Naval Academy, and I was as
eager a beaver as you're going to find, and
I was anxious to go in harm's way.
And I had a very high preference number at that
time, and it appeared that I was going
to go to an old battleship.
But the Naval Academy decided they'd keep me as
an instructor for that summer period,
and at the end of the summer, they'd give me
duty of my choice.
The duty of my choice was a brand-new destroyer
building in Bath, Maine, and we went right
to the South Pacific with Arleigh Burke.
When I got to the South Pacific, it didn't
appear to me that the war was won.
It appeared that we had a tough row ahead of us.
It was an exciting period.
It was a period of intense training.
It was a period where we were doing something
all the time, and as you read the history,
and I know you're very familiar with Admiral
Burke, it was go, go, go, and it was just
a real thrill for a young ensign to be a part
of all of that.
We'd run up the slot, and we'd do all sorts of
things, and the hazards were there.
We saw all sorts of damaged ships, minefields
that had knocked off certain merchant ships,
things of that sort, and one air attack after another.
The war wasn't won when we joined it, but we
participated and the rest is history.
Tell me about the reference number.
What designation was that?
By reference number, I'm not sure what you mean.
You made reference just a minute ago, my
reference number.
We have a system when you graduate from the
Naval Academy, you put about, let's say our
class was 900 strong in those days, everybody
draws a preference number.
The one that has number one, he gets duty of
his choice, the one that has number two.
Mine was near the bottom, so I was going to get
something that wasn't going to be involved
in the war, and I was really down in the dumps.
But I've been a very lucky individual, Jerry,
through my career.
I'm really a product of World War II, starting
right out with getting my choice of a brand
new destroyer and getting hooked up with
Admiral Burke and doing a number of things.
I was battle-tested, and just one thing led to
another, and I'm sure my experiences in
World War II caused me to eventually be aid to
the Chief of Naval Operations.
After the war, I went to MIT.
I'm sure the reason I was selected to go to MIT
was partly because of my war record.
And it just kept going on and on.
I was selected for every rank early.
I ended up being a rear admiral at the age of
43 and the first in my class to be a rear admiral.
I relate that all to my experiences in World
War II.
You said that your first commission was with
Admiral Burke, who at the time was probably
Commander Burke. Yes.
It was Commander Burke and Comm. Des.
Later to become the Little Beavers.
The Little Beavers.
When was Admiral Burke like-now, he had just
assumed command of Des. Ron.
23, is that correct?
joined up, and this was the first time he had a
group of eight 2100 ton destroyers at
his disposal, and Admiral Burke was an eager
beaver, and he just instilled in all of us
that feeling.
I guess the byword with him was, you know deer,
unless otherwise directed, get on with it.
Be prepared, seek out the enemy, do your best,
and do it in a timely, quick manner.
Prior to Admiral Burke, did we have set
destroyer tactics for attack?
Because I've always heard that Admiral Burke
really refined the destroyer tactics.
Yes, he did.
As far as I know, we were with other division
commanders before we hooked up with Admiral
Burke in the South Pacific.
They didn't have any particular doctrine.
But when you hooked up with Admiral Burke, he
had two doctrines.
One, he had a battle doctrine that said, look,
if it'll kill Japs, then it's important.
If it doesn't kill Japs, it's not important.
And then he had an administrative doctrine, and
the administrative doctrine said, we don't
have an administrative doctrine.
That's all there was to it.
So Admiral Burke, he was a very charismatic leader.
I met him for the first time when our squadron
was sort of having a little R&R at Club Des
Slot in Purvis Bay in that Tulagi area.
Could you tell us what club dust flat means?
Well, it's just a thatched hut on the beach.
You could go over there and get a can of beer.
That's about the size of it.
When you were with Admiral Burke,
and we have that great painting of him on the
wing bridge of his ship,
and that was at the Battle of Cape St. George,
is that correct? Yes.
And is that where the famous 31 knots Burke
message began, or will proceed on at 31 knots?
Yes, we were told to be across the Rabaul-Buka
Island evacuation line.
The Japanese were using that to get out of
Bougainville and go north.
We received a message one day to proceed
athwart that line and be ready to intercept an enemy,
and if we did, we'd know what to do.
And therein came this Burke Doctrine. Burke
also had a Tactical Doctrine that went with the
Battle Doctrine.
And then he has the divisions deployed on a
line of echelon, but he gave himself and the
Osborne and his division a 10 degree advantage.
So that when you had torpedo contact, he made
the first torpedo, the second division covered him,
and then we went in and made torpedoes as he
opened out to gunfire.
all in the surprise, and we were able to
execute that immediately, if not sooner.
But on the 31-knot Berk, let me clear up
something as far as that.
Everybody thinks it was because that was a fast speed.
Those ships were 35-knot ships.
They'd make much faster speed than that, but a
couple of the ships had engineering troubles,
and 31 knots was the maximum they could make.
And he had reported upon our return from the
Empress Augusta Bay Battle that he was
proceeding at 31 knots.
And Halsey kind of was needling Burke with that
message, and he called him 31-knot Burke
in the next message.
And that name just stuck, you know, it was just
sort of a magic type of thing for the
news people to pick up, and it just stuck with
him, 30-knot Burke, but it always had
the wrong connotation.
They always thought he was proceeding at full
speed, and he really wasn't.
We had trouble with our torpedoes at the
beginning of the war.
Had the problem with them running deep, if I'm
not mistaken, had that been solved by
this time?
Yes, that's true.
There was a problem in running deep and there
was a problem with torpedoes in the southern
hemisphere type of thing.
Burke got around that.
He had the setting such that there wouldn't be
any question they could perform at the
setting that he put them.
It was a little different.
whether it was a little shallower or a little
deeper than normal.
But Burke had us on our toes on all things of
that sort.
We would even practice against each other.
We would fire offset shoots.
Now most commanders weren't willing to do that,
you know, let you shoot at his own ship.
But that was common practice with us.
We'd put offset of ten degrees and we'd fire at
the ship on our beam and it'd be our own
ship and we'd just land the projectiles in the
wake and we could tell whether we were
good or not.
You had to be good.
You had to be good, but we were good, just in part.
I had an unusual insight in this war that may
be of interest to you.
I had a physical capability that not many
people had, and when you're in war, people
learn who has special capabilities.
I could see like a hawk at night, and my depth
perception was excellent, and that became known.
As an ensign, I was appointed to be the
counting officer of the ship in battle.
I even slept on the bridge every time we went
to condition one easy because everybody wanted
me close at hand to do the maneuvering.
If you recall, we were maneuvering at high speeds.
We were about 300-500 yards distance, and we
were steaming in column.
We always did a block and ship, and we didn't
have all that good a surface radar.
It didn't work that well at those close ranges.
So I was really maneuvering, hearing all the
messages coming over the TBS and interpreting
them for the turns and so on.
And I could see the wakes of the ship ahead,
and when they changed speed, I could tell.
So I was sort of the mechanic for Captain Hamburger.
And Captain Hamburger, the converse, was a very
cool, collected, wise man and had a lot
of destroyer experience.
And he knew what to do to fight that ship in
the best manner possible.
So he kept the overall picture in mind, and he
left all the maneuvering of that ship to
me. Not many captains are willing to do that.
That's correct. And let a young ensign do that
type of thing. So I have a pretty good picture
of what went on, even though I was just fresh
out of
the Naval Academy. There was brought up this
morning in the symposium that Admiral Yamamoto
had been shot down in April of 43. And it's
always been said that this was a great morale
booster for
the people in the Pacific. When news finally
reached the frontline American troops, was there
Were there joyous shouts, or was there-what was
made of Admiral Yamamoto being shot down?
Jerry, I vaguely remember hearing that report,
but the thing that struck me the most at that
time, you know, I had the feeling, well,
Yamamoto will be replaced by somebody else just as
would happen in our own Navy, and we had a long
road to hoe.
I was most pleased that our intelligence was so
good, and then, of course, the Battle of
Cape St. George even made that more comforting
because we were told that an enemy was coming
down, and sure enough, he was there.
We were able to intercept him, and as you know,
that was one of the most perfectly fought battles.
It was an exciting thing that evening.
But you also have to remember that was followed
just, I think, about three weeks before.
We had fought the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay.
Now I can tell you, I was on the bridge of that
destroyer in that battle, and that was
a nightmare.
It was the biggest fiasco I've ever
participated in.
Everybody was going every which way.
Ships were colliding.
We had one of our ships hit with a torpedo.
The cruisers were firing guns, six-inch guns.
The enemy was firing eight-inch guns.
Ships got lost.
The turn signals were confused.
We had star shells, and we had smoke signals,
the vessels smoking to hide cover.
I never really knew what was going on or what
happened, and I didn't know until in 1959
I read Ken Jones' book when I was aide to
Admiral Burke, and I finally was able to piece
the puzzle together.
But in my memory, that was just one confused mess.
The fog of war.
In Potter's book on Admiral Burke, he makes not
necessarily the most flattering reference
to your relation to Admiral Burke.
And I know you have great respect for the man,
but Dr. Potter just doesn't play the
most flattering picture.
And here you later become Admiral Burke's aide
when he was Chief of Naval Operations.
What was your relationship with Admiral Burke?
Well, that's a sore point in my life, Jerry.
Dr. Potter did treat me quite well, though.
He had indicated that I'd been successful
afterwards and so on.
But Dr. Potter was trying to do, or Professor
Potter, I guess you'd call him,
English professor at the Naval Academy.
He was trying to get all sides of Admiral Burke.
Now, not many people have told about the side
of Admiral Burke that I told in my oral history.
I said many fine things about Admiral Burke.
I have the utmost respect for him.
He is one of the finest naval officers that
ever trod a quarterdeck.
He was just great all the way around.
But I have to tell you, I've worked for some
difficult people, and if I have any claim
to fame, it's the people for whom I've worked,
such as Admiral Rickover, McNamara, Joe Califano,
Adam Yarmolinsky, you name it, and I probably
worked for him at one time.
They were all difficult, but I have to tell you
that Admiral Burke was the most difficult.
He was the most demanding of the immediate
staff of any man I've ever seen, somewhat
inconsiderate of his immediate staff.
Now that's not the picture the vast majority of
people see of Admiral Burke.
He comes across as very kindly, very
sympathetic, very understanding.
But I've had Admiral Burke do a number of things.
We worked all hours.
Although I was labeled as personal aid, he used
me sort of as a right-hand man.
Gee, I had advanced degrees at MIT, I'd
commanded destroyers and everything when I was ordered
to that job.
At times, he would make me so mad that it would
bring tears to my eyes.
Well Potter wrote about that as if the headline
seems to be, aid cries with Admiral Burke.
So Potter and I had an exchange of
correspondence on this.
And I said, gee, Professor, you didn't treat me fairly.
You took out of context that one episode and
emphasized it.
And I said, I said many good things, and you
could have said that in addition so that you
had a balance of my report when you read the
oral history.
But he said, well, you were the only one that
would say anything like that.
And he said, I talked to many others.
I talked to Admiral Mack, and I talked to
Admiral Miller, and I talked to all the other
fellows like yourself who were close to him,
and they all agreed you were exactly right.
And he said, but I couldn't get any of them on
record, and you're the fall guy.
So I accepted it.
So you're carrying the burden of the cross.
I accepted it.
Any other recollections or reflections that you
might have at the moment?
it is 50 years later you've seen you know maybe
some people you knew from the time and uh just
I reflect on on my experience of that and I
come up with several things first of all uh you have
to be pretty lucky to it seems to me Admiral
Burke once said to me Ray if you have the
choice in
selecting between two good men always pick the
lucky one now I know that's not easy to do but
But there's a lot of truth.
You have to realize that during that war, I
became officer of the deck.
We had been straddled by shore fire.
The two ships ahead of me in column had
collided and then damaged in the engagement.
The ship astern of me got lost in the maneuvers
and was hit by a torpedo.
In Empress Augusta Bay, the ship I was on was
hit with midships with a dud torpedo.
It went on and on.
We were in air attack after air attack.
We dodged torpedoes.
those, I'd have to say I had an awful lot of
luck going my way.
But even more than that, it caused me to be a
little bit fatalistic when I think about
my experiences back there.
When the Converse was headed back to the States
for an overhaul, we went through Pearl Harbor.
By that time, I had risen from being an ensign
to a full lieutenant on that ship, and the
new captain, Captain Colwell, appointed me as
executive officer,
as a full attendant less than two years out of
the academy.
But I got ordered back to go to the States
and be a gunnery officer of a new construction destroyer.
I wasn't too happy about that.
The skipper of the Spence was in our squadron
at that time.
He wanted me to come as his exec because he
needed a new exec.
It so happened that my orders required me to
leave Pearl
at a given time. So I had to get on the
airplane and leave. The skipper said, when you
get to the
states, ask the Bureau to let you come, and I
will send a message and do that. Well, I got
back to
the states, and probably you know what happened.
I said, I want to go to the Spence. The skipper
of the Spence wants me. The squadron commander
said, fine. They said, the Spence sank in the
typhoon out there. So here again, I just missed
that thing. And that's been the story of my life.
Even when I had command of the Bain Bridge,
I've been awfully lucky, and it's had an effect
on me.
I had the Bain Bridge going down the Cooper
River early one morning with the sun in my eyes,
and I don't know whether you know the Cooper
River in Charleston, but it's very windy.
They have horseshoe turns.
I'm not familiar with it, no.
Well, I took the Bain Bridge down, and I didn't
take a pilot.
I was pretty cocky in those days, and I said,
if the pilot can do it, I can do it, and so I
did it.
I turned on the wrong buoy, and all of a
sudden, I guess my big toe itched, and I said,
all back, emergency full, and I came within 10
feet of putting the first nuclear-powered
cruiser ashore.
We don't even want to talk about that.
I did goosebumps.
And your rank at that time?
My rank at that time, I was a fresh-caught captain.
I'd been selected.
It would have been another Missouri case all over.
The good Lord is watching you.
Yes, he is.
Let me tell you another story, if I may, that
hasn't been told, but it gives
you the feeling in wartime.
We were in the South Pacific, and we'd had an
air attack.
We were doing some training, man overboard
drill type of thing.
We put the whale boat in the water.
In the whale boat was a young ensign by the
name of Bernie Levin.
He had a chief engineer, and he also had a coxswain.
They were in the water, and I was acting first
lieutenant at that time.
they were in the water and so on. We got this
air raid warning. We'd left the motorboat
all by itself in the middle of the Pacific, all
alone. And then we went off and it turned
out to be a false attack and we came back. But
we went over the horizon. As far as that
motor whale boat knew, they had no idea why we
had done that. When we went alongside again,
I talked to Bernie Levin. I said, Bernie, what
did you think? He said, Ray, I'll tell
He said, he began swearing and cussing and just
making a big fuss.
And the chief engineer of the whale boat, he
began praying.
He said, I started to contemplate about that.
He said, you know, I really had to decide that
the chief engineer was doing something
a little more constructive, and I joined him.
I always kind of like that story.
Well, listen, I cannot thank you enough on the
part of the news.
May I add one other thing? Sure.
You see, I think that there's no probability of
having surprise naval attacks such as we
had in this war, and that that was a war of hide-and-go-seek.
Today, the war is a war of confusion and
deception, and I hope people realize that. Absolutely.
Again, on behalf of the Nimitz Museum and
Foundation, I really do thank you for taking
time to come and join us.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Jerry, I enjoyed it.
Nice to be with you.