Admiral Arleigh Burke

New York: Random House, 1990. First Edition [stated]. First Printing [per Random House convention--if it says First Edition it is a first printing]. Hardcover. very good/very good. William J. Clipson (Maps). 25 cm. xii, [2], 494, [2] pages. Illustrations. Maps and Diagrams. Sources. Chapter Notes. Index. DJ is in a plastic sleeve. Elmer Belmont "Ned" Potter (27 December 1908 - 22 November 1997) was an American historian and writer. Potter was the leading naval historian at the United States Naval Academy from the late 1940s to the mid-1970s. He was editor of the Naval Academy's textbook on naval history, Sea Power: A Naval History, in collaboration with Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz. In 1941, Potter joined the U.S. Naval Reserve and was assigned to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, where he began to teach history. With the exception of three years service in the Pacific theater in 1943-45, Potter spent his entire career at the Naval Academy until he retired in 1977.
Potter lectured widely on naval history and was a member of the U.S. Naval Institute, the American Historical Association, and the American Association of University Professors. Told by a historian who was chairman of naval history at Annapolis for twenty years, here is the first full chronicle of the sailor who was at the time was World War II's last living naval hero. Arleigh Albert Burke (October 19, 1901 - January 1, 1996) was an admiral of the United States Navy who distinguished himself during World War II and the Korean War, and who served as Chief of Naval Operations during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51), the lead ship of its class of Aegis-equipped guided missile destroyers, was commissioned in Burke's honor in 1991. The honor of naming a vessel after a living figure was only the fourth time it had been bestowed since 1861. In WWII He successively commanded Destroyer Division 43, Destroyer Division 44, Destroyer Squadron 12, and Destroyer Squadron 23. DesRon 23, known as the "Little Beavers", covered the initial landings in Bougainville in November 1943, and fought in 22 separate engagements during the next four months. During this time, the Little Beavers were credited with destroying one Japanese cruiser, nine destroyers, one submarine, several smaller ships, and approximately 30 aircraft. Burke's standing orders to his task force were, "Destroyers to attack on enemy contact WITHOUT ORDERS from the task force commander." In March 1944, Burke was promoted to Chief of Staff to the Commander of Task Force 58, the Fifth Fleet's Fast Carrier Task Force, which was commanded by Admiral Marc Mitscher. The transfer stemmed from a directive from the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Ernest King, that required a surface commander such as Admiral Raymond A. Spruance to have an aviator as Chief of Staff, and an air commander, such as Mitscher, to have a surface officer as Chief of Staff. Neither Mitscher nor Burke were happy with the arrangement, but as time passed Burke realized he had been given one of the most important assignments in the Navy, and his hard work and diligence eventually warmed Mitscher to him. Burke was promoted to the temporary rank of Commodore, and participated in all the force's naval engagements until June 1945, near the end of the war. He was aboard both USS Bunker Hill and USS Enterprise when they were hit by Japanese kamikaze aircraft during the Okinawa campaign. As Chief of Naval Operations hr supported the notoriously demanding Admiral Hyman Rickover in the development of a nuclear-powered submarine force, and instituted the development of submarine-launched ballistic missiles, which led to the Polaris missile program, headed by Burke's selectee Rear Admiral W. F. "Red" Raborn. Burke convened the Project Nobska anti-submarine warfare conference in 1956 at the suggestion of Columbus Iselin II, director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where discussion ranged from oceanography to nuclear weapons. At the conference, a statement by Edward Teller that a physically small one-megaton warhead suitable for Polaris could be developed led to Burke's adoption of Polaris over Jupiter. At a time when others in the Navy were very skeptical of the idea of a missile launched from a submarine, Burke succeeded in developing the single most effective deterrent to a nuclear attack on the United States. By 1961 routine Polaris deterrent patrols were in progress and a rapid construction program of Polaris submarines was underway.