WI: Ernie King is CinCPac 7 December?

Re: black out the US East Coast.

He didn't even bother to ask for it.

....

A number of military leaders both recommended and 'asked' for it. Some months before the German declaration of war on the US. Essentially the people who owned the lights refused. The people with the legal authority to order such a thing were painfully slow to take action. The same thing occured on the west coast.
 
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Getting back to King as CINCPAC. Events there were influenced by the War Warning of late November. Both the Army & Navy on Oahu took the warning seriously and instigated a week of frantic activity. One enlisted man present in the Pacific fleet then described it as "The brass went nuts and everyone ran about until exhausted". Just maybe King would have taken a more balanced approach from 27 Nov and scheduled a more sustainable alert program, that would not have brought pressure for a maintiance stand down? Alternately he might have not scheduled the stand down Dec 6th & 7th & kept everyone in the Navy at full speed despite soaring equipment deadline rates and increasing accidents?
 
Carl Schwamberger said:
maybe King would have taken a more balanced approach from 27 Nov and scheduled a more sustainable alert program, that would not have brought pressure for a maintiance stand down? Alternately he might have not scheduled the stand down Dec 6th & 7th & kept everyone in the Navy at full speed despite soaring equipment deadline rates and increasing accidents?
That's an option I hadn't considered.:cool:

It might mean PacFleet meets Nagumo ready.:cool: Bad news for Japan...:eek:

If it does (or only means a less-crushing U.S. defeat;)), can King's career survive? If he's retained as CinCPac after 7 Dec, what does the rest of the war look like? My sense is, he's aggressive, maybe moreso than Nimitz. Was he more willing to use mining against IJN anchorages? (Nimitz seemed hostile to mining.) If he's more willing, this is good for the Sub Force. I have a sense he'd be less enamored of the guerrilla sub ops, also good for Sub Force.:cool:

OTOH, where does Nimitz end up? As ComSubPac?:p (He'd be about right for the seniority...)
 
Another important question is who King would have placed in command of the SE pacific region? Ghormley? Or was he simply Nimitzs choice & not certain for selection? Ghormleys health failed under the strain. had King selected someone else the Solomons campaign might have opened better in august/September.
 
Another important question is who King would have placed in command of the SE pacific region? Ghormley? Or was he simply Nimitzs choice & not certain for selection? Ghormleys health failed under the strain. had King selected someone else the Solomons campaign might have opened better in august/September.

He probably yanks Fletcher from carrier command earlier depending on events. King was never a Fletcher fan and he pressured Nimitz to replace him after Coral Sea.
 
Zheng He said:
He probably yanks Fletcher from carrier command earlier
Works for me.;)

Would King support (or allow) Spruance's takeover of Halsey's TF?

On the Bensons: evidently my recall is faulty.:eek: However, of the late-WW1 & immediate-postwar DDs, there were about 125 survivors, not counting about 6 (12?) each APD & DMS conversions. (If those could be changed to long-range escorts as simply/cheaply as original-built DDs, & weren't required by USN, I'd add them in.) Would surplussing them off to RN make sense? It would, IMO, encourage building new DDs (Porters?), which would both create jobs (valuable in the period) & (ultimately) strengthen the USN (a selling point for isolationist sentiment).
 
He probably yanks Fletcher from carrier command earlier depending on events. King was never a Fletcher fan and he pressured Nimitz to replace him after Coral Sea.

Hmm.. I can see Fletcher being replaced sooner, tho part of Fletchers problem was Ghormleys declining ability. With a different & hopefully better man in that slot then maybe Fletcher gets better orders, clearer guidance, & a firmer hand.
 
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