King, Ernest Joseph

King, Ernest Joseph, 1878–1956, American admiral, commander in chief of the U.S. fleet (1941–45), b. Lorain, Ohio. A graduate of Annapolis, he distinguished himself in many branches of naval service, including the submarine and air arms. In World War I he was assistant chief of staff to Admiral Henry T. Mayo, commander of the Atlantic Fleet. King himself commanded (Feb.–Dec., 1941) the Atlantic Fleet and then became commander of the U.S. naval forces. King also became (Mar., 1942) chief of naval operations and directed the naval strategy that took the U.S. fleet into Japanese waters. He was made (1944) fleet admiral (five-star admiral) and retired from the navy a year later.

Bibliography

See his autobiographical Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record (with W. M. Whitehill, 1952).

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King, Ernest Joseph 

Born Nov. 23, 1878, in Lorain, Ohio; died June 25, 1956, in Portsmouth, N.H. US admiral of the fleet (1944).

King graduated from the Naval Academy in 1901. From 1936 to 1941 he successively commanded base, reconnaissance, and line forces of the US Navy and was a member of the general board of the Navy Department and commander of the patrol forces. Commander of the Atlantic Fleet from February to December 1941, King was appointed commander in chief of the US Navy in December 1941, after the Pearl Harbor catastrophe, and chief of naval operations in March 1942. As a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs and of the Anglo-American Combined Chiefs of Staff, King successfully directed the planning of the US naval operations in World War II. He retired in January 1946. King’s works include War Reports of George C. Marshall, H. H. Arnold, and Ernest J. King and Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record.