William Daniel Leahy (May 6, 1875 – July 20, 1959) was an American naval officer who served as the senior-most United States military officer on active duty during World War II. He held multiple titles and was at the center of all major military decisions the United States made in World War II.
Leahy was recalled to active duty as the personal Chief of Staff to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942 and served in that position throughout World War II. He chaired the Chiefs of Staff and was a major decision-maker during the war. He continued under President Harry S. Truman until finally retiring in 1949. From 1942 until his retirement in 1949, he was the highest-ranking active duty member of the U.S. military, reporting only to the President. He was the United States' first de facto Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (not his official title) and he also presided over the American delegation to the Combined Chiefs of Staff, when the American and British staffs worked together.
As fleet admiral, Leahy was the first U.S. naval officer ever to hold a five-star rank in the U.S. Armed Forces. USS Leahy(DLG-16) was named in his honor, as is Leahy Hall, the U.S. Naval Academy admissions office.[2]
Early life and education
From an Irish-American family, Leahy was born in Hampton, Iowa, and moved with his parents to Ashland, Wisconsin, as a child. His father Michael Arthur Leahy (1838–1921) was a successful lawyer and Civil War veteran, and William had wanted to attend West Point and follow in his father's footsteps. However, after graduating high school in 1893 he attended the United States Naval Academy, graduating 15th in his class of 47 in 1897.
Late in 1912, he came ashore in Washington as Assistant Director of Gunnery Exercises and Engineering Competitions. In 1913, he was assigned to the Bureau of Navigation as a detail officer, where he served until 1915. At that time, he took command of the dispatch gunboat Dolphin, and established a close friendship with the then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who cruised with him on the ship. He was in that assignment in early 1917 in West Indian waters and had additional duty as Senior Aide on the Staff of Commander Squadron Three of the Patrol Force Atlantic Fleet.
Leahy served for almost a year as the Executive Officer of Nevada and in April 1918 went to command Princess Matoika, formerly Princess Alice, transporting troops to France. It was during this tour that he was awarded the Navy Cross.
After a short cruise in that command, he came ashore in 1918 and served for three years as director of Gunnery Exercises and Engineering Competition in the Navy Department. He was also a senior member of the Fire Control Board.
In 1921, he went to sea in command of St. Louis, flagship of the naval detachment in Turkish waters during the Greco-Turkish War. At the end of that war, he was given command of Mine Squadron One, and in 1922 further additional duty as commander, Control Force.
He returned to the United States, and from 1923 to 1926, he served as director of Officer Personnel in the Bureau of Navigation. For one year, he commanded the battleship New Mexico.
In 1927, he reached flag rank and became chief of the Bureau of Ordnance. After almost four years, he went to sea in 1931 as Commander Destroyers Scouting Force.
He was appointed Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), took the oath of office in January 1937 to serve until August 1939 when he was placed on the retired list. On that occasion, President Roosevelt said "Bill, if we have a war, you're going to be right back here helping me run it."[4]
Before retiring as CNO, Leahy joined his wife Louise Harrington Leahy when she sponsored Cimarron, which was commissioned on March 20, 1939.
From September 1939 to November 1940, Leahy served as Governor of Puerto Rico after Roosevelt removed Blanton Winship over his role in the Ponce massacre. Leahy oversaw the development of military bases and stations across the island while serving as governor. He took an open stance of not intervening directly in[5]local politics, attempted to understand and respect local customs, and initiated various major public works projects in the island.[citation needed]
While given the unflattering sobriquet Almirante Lija ("Admiral Sandpaper") by locals, based on his family name, he was regarded as one of the most lenient American governors of the several who served Puerto Rico in the first half of the 20th century.[citation needed]
Ambassador to France
Leahy was appointed Ambassador to France (later referred to as Vichy France for the city in which the capital was located) in 1941 following that country's capitulation to Nazi Germany. Leahy relates in his memoir I Was There that (his) "major task was to keep the French on our side in so far as possible".[6] He was recalled in May 1942.
The United States supplied food and medical aid to the Vichy regime and to French North Africa, hoping in return to moderate Vichy collaboration with Germany and to avoid an open Vichy–German alliance in the Mediterranean. American aid proved too little to buy French support over North Africa.
President Roosevelt and Admiral Leahy meeting with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, on board USS Quincy.
Leahy spent D-Day, June 6, 1944, in his home town of Hampton, Iowa. This well-publicized "sentimental journey" was part of the deception efforts surrounding the Allied invasion of Europe. The idea was to lull any German agents in Washington, D.C., or elsewhere in the United States into believing that the operation would not take place while such an important officer was out of the capital.
Leahy was promoted to the rank of Fleet Admiral on December 15, 1944, the most senior of the seven men who received five-star rank in 1944.
Leahy accompanied President Roosevelt as his personal aide to the Yalta Conference in February 1945. At Yalta, Roosevelt met the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to decide how Europe was to be reorganized after the impending surrender of Germany. Five months later, he went with President Truman to the Potsdam Conference where Truman met with Stalin and the new British Prime Minister Clement Attlee to make decisions about the governance of occupied Germany. Leahy was disappointed in the outcome of these conferences because he recognized they would leave the Soviet Union as a dominant superpower in Continental Europe.[7]
According to Truman's Memoirs: Year of Decisions, Leahy was present in 1945 when President Truman was given questionable advice by Vannevar Bush about the likely success of the atom bomb project:
The next day Jimmy Byrnes, who until shortly before had been Director of War Mobilization for President Roosevelt, came to see me, and even he told me few details though with great solemnity he said that we were perfecting an explosive great enough to destroy the whole world. It was later, when Vannevar Bush, head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, came to the White House, that I was given a scientist's version of the atomic bomb.
"That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done," he observed in his sturdy, salty manner. "The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives." Admiral Leahy was with me when Dr. Bush told me this astonishing fact.[8]
Once it had been tested, President Truman faced the decision as to whether to use it. He did not like the idea, but he was persuaded that it would shorten the war against Japan and save American lives. It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons ... My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make wars in that fashion, and that wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.[9]
After mediating between the United States Navy and the Puerto Rican government over the involuntary transfer of part of the islands of Vieques and Culebra to naval authorities, Leahy again retired from the Navy in March 1949, though as an officer with five-star rank, he technically remained on active service. The following year, he published his war memoirs, I Was There.
There is a bilingual book called Las memorias de Leahy: los relatos del almirante William D. Leahy sobre su gobernación de Puerto Rico (1939–1940) that lists his diary entries from Puerto Rico in both Spanish and English, which was published by the Luis Muñoz Marín Foundation in 2001.
Personal life
While serving on the USS Pensacola, which was based in San Francisco, Leahy met Louise Tennent Harrington, whom he married on 3 February 1904.[10] During Leahy's tenure as Ambassador to France, his wife underwent a hysterectomy, which could not be delayed until their pending return to the United States. While recovering from the operation, Louise Leahy suffered an embolism and died with Leahy at her side on 21 April 1942. After a service at the St Thomas Episcopal Church, she was buried on 3 June 1942 in Arlington National Cemetery.[11]
William and Louise had children, including a son, William Harrington Leahy, who graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1927. He engaged in pre-World War II naval intelligence.[12] William H. Leahy retired from the U.S. Navy as a 2-star rear admiral in 1961.
Death
Grave at Arlington National Cemetery
Leahy died at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, July 20, 1959, at the age of eighty-four. At the time of his death, he was the oldest officer on active duty in the history of the U.S. Navy. He was given an Armed Forces military funeral on July 23, 1959. His body was viewed at the Bethlehem Chapel at the Washington National Cathedral from July 22 noon until noon the following day. The funeral service was held in the cathedral at 1400 on July 23 and the burial was in Arlington National Cemetery.[13]
Leahy was invested as an Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Military Division of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath on November 21, 1945.[14]
Note: Leahy was ineligible for the American Defense Service Medal, as he retired from the Navy in August 1939 and was recalled to active duty in May 1942. The medal was for active service from 8 September 1939 to 7 December 1941.
Hall, George M. (1994). The Fifth Star: High Command in an Era of Global War. Westport: Praeger Publishers. ISBN0-275-94802-1.
Hayes, Grace P. The history of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in World War II (1982) 964 pages
Langer, William L. Our Vichy gamble (1947).
Leahy, Fleet Adm William D. I Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman: Based on His Notes and Diaries Made at the Time (1950)
Mobley, Scott. "By the Force of Our Arms: William D. Leahy and the US Intervention in Nicaragua, 1912." Fed. Hist. 11 (2019): 39+ online
O'Brien, Phillips Payson. The Second Most Powerful Man in the World: The Life of Admiral William D. Leahy, Roosevelt's Chief of Staff (2019). excerpt
Military offices
Preceded byWilliam H. Standley
Chief of Naval Operations 1937–1939
Succeeded byHarold R. Stark
New office
Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief 1942–1949
Succeeded byOmar Bradleyas Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Political offices
Preceded byJosé E. Colón
Governor of Puerto Rico September 11, 1939 – November 28, 1940
Succeeded byJosé Miguel Gallardo
Diplomatic posts
Preceded byWilliam C. Bullitt
United States Ambassador to France 1941–1942
VacantGerman occupation of FranceTitle next held byJefferson Caffery in 1944
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