"JOIN HANDS WITH ME IN TOKYO"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 260, 16 June 1944, Page 10

"JOIN HANDS WITH ME IN TOKYO"

Hard-Hitting Admiral Halsey Comes Vo Vorrr

ULL, they call him, Admiral William F. Halsey, Jnr, U.S.N., Commander of Allied Naval Forces in the South Pacific Area, and Bull it would have to be if you tried to find one word to describe him. He was shadowed by three or four giants as he came into the press conference room in Auckland last week, so he looked short. They opened the doors for him, and he came into the room, no pause, no hesitation on the threshold — just blam, and he was in the room, bare-headed, wide shouldered, arms hanging straight at his sides. And he looked so purposeful as he stood there square and straight for a moment, his eyes like a couple of turret holes shooting inquiry from under those eyebrow awnings, I could imagine him in action shouting Lady Macbeth’s lines: "Infirm of purpose! Give me _ the dagger!" But no one gave him a dagger. He got a right hand from each of us instead. No doubt about that either, a good, warm handshake, as downright and abrupt as his entry had been. He sat. We sat. Glasses were handed round. It had begun. A message for New Zealand? "Yes. I bring a very decided message. For 19 months now New Zealanders have been fighting in the South Pacific under my command. If they make any better fighting men anywhere in the world, I'd like to know where! I hope some of them will join hands with me in Tokyo-if I’m lucky enough to get to Tokyo. My admiration for. the New Zealand fighting forces I cannot express in words. He mentioned the "cordial and very friendly attitude" of New Zealanders to American servicemen. "The way our tired and battle-weary men have been received and rehabilitated

will never be forgotten by the American people. I expressed that very badly, but it’s very heartfelt." The Ever-Ready Smile He was sitting on a couch, elbows on his knees, hands clasped round a glass; those hands were long and bony. He sat square, comfortably, feet apart; and while he spoke or while someone put a question his feet were still. But in the pauses after statements, between questions, the toes of those polished shoes were busy-tap, tap, tap, tap-tap, tap. "The only good Jap is a Jap who's been dead six months," he said a year ago. I watched those tapping shoes and thought of that statement: punctuation marks, I thought; a comma, a full-stop for the enemy with each tap. .. After each statement he raised deep-set eyes to’ our table, a quick glance to make sure the question was done with; or, very often, opened his unusually wide mouth into a straight smile. The curious thing about this smile was that it did not fade, die away again at once; it flickered across his face, returned, hovered round the corners of his mouth to be savoured once more before it was banished. Admiral Halsey seemed to have a special, a very intimate friend in that smile of his; as if he and that smile shared a few jokes, somewhat wry jokes at that... "Our shoe-string Navy has now gtown into a good-sized boot; the J is a small man, a very small man, and he can easily be dislodged by a goodsided boot. . ." The smile. . . The Weakened Spits "There are not more than about 15,000 Japs left in this area, and of (continued on next page)

Ycontinued from previous page) these no more than 2000 are effectivein other words, they are impotent. The Jap planes shot down would’ be about 4800, the men killed between 100,000 and 150,000, and the ships sunk-well, I just can’t remember the figure, there have been so many of them. If the enemy’s back is not broken in this area, then his spine is very considerably weakened." The smile. . . "I need hardly tell you that I don’t like the Japanese." The smile. . . (And that was the only time we heard Admiral Halsey use the word Japanese. The rest of the time he said Japs; except for once, when he said Nips.) "No, I can’t tell you any particular day of stress we went through. I took over on October 18, 1942, with no background of this area or no idea I was being put in this command." (At the time he was given that command it is said he remarked: "This is the hottest potato they have ever handed me.’) "Five days after we arrived, we were mixed up in a fight, and for six or seven weeks after that the moments of tension were continuous, and I can’t sort 6ut any particular day that was worse than all the others. But I do

remember a feeling of relief after the night of November 15, 1942." The smile. . . "The very grave danger that New Zealand and Australia faced two years ago is absolutely obliterated. The Japs still have power to make a_ token attack, but they are so low down in ships, both naval and merchant, that they cannot afford to do it. I, for one, would welcome it. I would love to see them try. I think you people here can breathe in perfect security." The smile, wide open. . . The Japanese in New Ireland, New Britain, New Guinea, Bougainville, Choiseul, and the rest of the Solomons are doomed, he said. And the formerlystrong enemy base at Rabaul has been bombed dead flat. Would it still have to be taken by assault force? "Why kill men to take something that you’ve already got where you want it without wasting any life?" The smile, gentle. . . As Boastful As... "The Jap orders we have captured have been very interesting. The most recent, on Bougainville, set out the exact place where General Griswold was to be taken to surrender, with instructions that he was not to be shot until orders were given. Well, he hasn’t been shot, and he’s not going to be shot! The Jap orders are extremely boastful-in fact, they’re as boastful as some of the

remarks I made on my last visit to ahd! Zealand!" The smile, wide open. . and everyone joining in the "I have come to see the fine people of New Zealand and to say ‘Hullo’ to them. Curiously enough, as an American, I am very fond of them!" The smile. . . "Curiously?" asked a reporter. The smile, very wide open; the head back; general laughter in the room. His Only Enemies So was this jolly, twinkling-eyed man of the sea a martinet for discipline? I watched him, listened to ‘him, remembering the description Admiral Nimitz gave of him:"He is professionally competent and militarily aggressive without being reckless or foolhardly. He has that rare combination of intellectual capacity and military audacity. . . His only enemies are the Japs." His slogan is well known: "Hit hard, hit fast, hit often." And on a visit to Guadalcanal he is said to have instructed: "Kill Japs, kill Japs, and then kill more Japs." "Oh, yes," I heard one of his men say, discussing him in a group, "everyone salutes Admiral Halsey. Up in the islands even the New Zealanders, who don’t go in’ for saluting in a big way, click their heels and spring to it when (continued on next page)

JOIN HANDS IN TOKYO (continued from previous page)

Bull Halsey comes along. And maybe he'll rip your tie out at an inspection. But then you'll see him walking .down the offices with clicking heels on all sides, the walls shivering from the force of the saluting that’s going on all down the room, and he'll go straight ahead till he comes to a yeoman behind a typewriter. He’ll lean down and you'll

hear him say, confidentially, ‘Say, Mick, what’s a good thing in the fifth at Saratoga on Saturday?’ This chap, Mick, was a sports writer back in the States. And then if there's a show on, we all know Halsey’ll be right out there on the bridge of the first ship; and if there’s a landing party, well, you can bet he’ll be going up the beach within 15 minutes after the first boat touched." Yes Means Yes They told me some of the rhymes and parodies that are current about this little big hero. The rhymes are full of bluff and blunt language-for it appears he makes himself plain. in good short words when he gives a pep-talk-and have no _ high-and-mighty-reach-me-the-moon-of-honour touches. They like him because his yes means yes, his no means no, he doesn’t expect them to go where he doesn’t go, and he is more concerned about a gun’s accuracy than about its polish. His yes that means yes is pronounced yes, not ye-€s, or yup, or yep, or uh-uh, or oh yeah; his no is no and not naw. His consonants are sharp and clear though not explosive; and he has rather more r’s than we have, but he does not roll them. His long a’s (half, Jast) are shorter, his short e’s (met, expect) longer than ours. He cuts the second half of the word record very short. He may say, but he didn’t at this interview, sure or I guess so. His language was a blunt instrument, yery effective; he didn’t have to repeat himself for our understanding or have to say "let me put it another way" (though one of us had to do this in putting an ambiguous question): a hard-hitting fighting man with a hard-hitting language. When he arrived in Auckland, piloting his own Liberator, he popped out the lower rear hatch before the side door could be opened for a dignified official descent; it is said that he will cling to old clothes, wearing an old pair of carpet slippers and a zipp-jacket when other men in similar positions would be formally dressed; he walks to work when he is working ashore; he does a daily walking constitutional (in a sun-helmet and a pair of khaki shorts in the tropics). } He has been in the Navy 44 years, "But," he said, "as my father was a Naval officer, I was really in the Navy from the time I was born. And I never had any other idea myself." And after the war? "As soon as this is over, I’m getting "out to enjoy myself." We asked him how. He said he had no plans. We sdid surely he had some idea. What did he do in holidays? "Holidays?" He looked as if he had difficulty in remembering. "Well, I play sports to keep fit. I go to places. I see my friends. I’m a gregarious man, and I like to see my friends when I can, But I’ve absolutely no plan in the world for what I'll do after the war. I’m too old to be making plans now." He doesn’t look too old, doesn’t look his 61 years. His hair is very neat, grey, and thin; he walks an active, straight-legged walk, and doesn’t bend at the knees; his eyes are keen-they were described by Time as "busy-look-ing as a couple of task-forces"-and his hands supple and alert; and his friendliness and punch at the Auckland Press conference made it very clear indeed how he has become the idol of the U.S. Navy, known to everyone as Admiral Bull Halsey.

J.