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William Daniel Leahy (/ˈleɪhi, ˈleɪ.i/; 6 May 1875 – 20 July 1959) was an American naval officer. The most senior United States military officer on active duty during World War II, he held several titles and exercised considerable influence over foreign and military policy. As a fleet admiral, he was the first flag officer ever to hold a five-star rank in the U.S. Armed Forces.

An 1897 graduate of Annapolis, Leahy saw active service in the Spanish–American War, the Philippine Insurrection, the Boxer Rebellion in China, the Banana Wars in Central America, and World War I. He was the first member of his cadet class to reach flag rank, as the Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance from 1927 to 1931. He subsequently served as Chief of the Bureau of Navigation from 1933 to 1936, and commanded the Battle Fleet from 1936 to 1937. As Chief of Naval Operations from 1937 to 1939, he was the senior officer in the United States Navy, overseeing the expansion of the fleet and preparations for war.

After retiring from the Navy, Leahy was appointed the governor of Puerto Rico in 1939 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In his most controversial role, he served as the Ambassador to France from 1940 to 1942. American policy was aimed at keeping the government of Vichy France free of German control, but Leahy had limited success and came to believe the United States should back Free France instead of Vichy France. He asked to be recalled to the United States after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into the Second World War.

Leahy was recalled to active duty and became the Chief of Staff to President Roosevelt in 1942, serving in that position for the rest of the war. As the de facto first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he oversaw all of the American armed forces and was a major decision-maker during the war. He also presided over the American delegation to the Combined Chiefs of Staff. In December 1944, he was promoted to the five-star rank of fleet admiral. In the aftermath of World War II, he served Roosevelt's successor Harry S. Truman, helping shape postwar foreign policy until he retired in 1949. Although he did not oppose the use of the nuclear weapons during the war, in the post-war period he rejected war plans that overemphasised the first use of nuclear weapons.

Early life and education
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As a naval cadet
William Daniel Leahy was born in Hampton, Iowa, on 6 May 1875, the first of seven children of Michael Anthony Leahy,[1][2] a lawyer and American Civil War veteran,[3] who was elected to the Iowa Legislature in 1872,[1][4] and his wife Rose Mary née Hamilton.[1] Both parents were born in the United States but his grandparents were immigrants from Ireland.[5] He had five brothers and a sister.[1] His father was re-elected in 1874,[4] but moved to Wausau, Wisconsin, in 1882. In 1889, the family moved again, this time to Ashland, Wisconsin, where Leahy attended high school. His nose was broken in an American football match and his family lacked the money to get it fixed, so it remained crooked for the rest of his life.[1]

Leahy wanted to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, but this required a Congressional appointment, and Leahy was unable to secure one. His local congressman, Thomas Lynch,[6] offered Leahy an appointment to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, which was much less popular among boys in the landlocked Midwestern United States. Leahy passed the entrance examinations and was admitted as a naval cadet in May 1893.[3][7]

Leahy learned how to sail on the USS Constellation on a summer cruise to Europe, although the vessel only made it as far as the Azores before breaking down.[7] He graduated 35th out of 47 in the class of 1897.[8][9][10] His class was the most successful ever: five of its members reached four-star rank while on active duty: Leahy, Thomas C. Hart, Arthur J. Hepburn, Orin G. Murfin, and Harry E. Yarnell. As of 2022, no other class has had more than four.[11]

Naval service
Spanish–American War
Until 1912, naval cadets graduating from Annapolis had to complete two years' duty at sea and pass examinations before they could be commissioned as ensigns.[12] Leahy was assigned to the battleship USS Oregon, which was then at Vancouver, British Columbia, for celebrations of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.[13] He was on board when she made a dash through the Strait of Magellan, and around South America in the spring of 1898 to participate in the Spanish–American War.[14] The Oregon took part in the blockade and bombardment of Santiago and shelled the small town of Guantánamo, which Leahy felt was "unnecessary and cruel."[15] In the Battle of Santiago on 3 July,[14] Leahy was in command of the ship's forward turret.[16] This was the only naval battle Leahy witnessed in person.[17]

Seeking further action, Leahy volunteered to serve on the gunboat USS Castine. The ship was bound for the war in the Pacific, traveling via the Mediterranean Sea and Suez Canal, but he got only as far as Ceylon when he received orders to report to Annapolis for his final ensign's examinations. He was left at Ceylon, and had to return to the United States on the USS Buffalo. He reached Annapolis in June 1899.[16] He passed his examinations, and was commissioned as an ensign on 1 July 1899.[9] After a few weeks' leave, spent with his parents in Wisconsin, and a few months' service on the cruiser USS Philadelphia at the Mare Island Navy Yard, he joined the monitor USS Nevada on 12 October 1899. A week later it set sail for the Philippines. It arrived in Manila on 24 November, and Leahy rejoined the crew of the Castine five days later.[18]

China and Philippine–American Wars
On 17 December 1899, Castine sailed for Nagasaki, but it developed engine trouble on 12 February 1900 and stopped in Shanghai to make repairs. While it was there, the Boxer Rebellion broke out in China; the ship was retained in Shanghai to help British, French and Japanese forces guard the city.[19] Leahy did not like their chances if the 4,500 Chinese troops in the vicinity joined the uprising, as they had in the Battle of Tientsin.[20] On 28 August, the Castine was ordered to Amoy to protect American interests in fear of a Japanese coup.[21] After the threat had passed, the Castine returned to the Philippines, arriving back in Manila on 16 September 1900.[22][23]

William Harrington Leahy is still a baby
With wife Louise and son William Harrington Leahy at Mare Island, California, in October 1905
The Philippine–American War was still ongoing, and the Castine supported American operations on Marinduque and Iloilo.[24] Leahy was appalled by American brutality and the widespread use of torture.[24][25] Still an ensign, he was given his first command, the gunboat USS Mariveles, a refitted ex-Spanish vessel. It had a crew of 23. His period in command ended when the Mariveles lost one of its propellers and had to be laid up for repairs. He was then reassigned to the USS Glacier, a stores ship which was engaged in bringing supplies from Australia to the Philippines. While in the Philippines he passed the examinations required for promotion to lieutenant, junior grade, and was promoted to that rank on 1 July 1902. He made his final trip to the Philippines in September 1902, and returned to the United States later that year.[9][26]

Sea duty alternated with duty ashore. Leahy was assigned to the training ship USS Pensacola in San Francisco,[27] where he was promoted to lieutenant on 31 December 1903.[9] He met and courted Louise Tennent Harrington. Leahy married Louise on 3 February 1904.[27][28][29] Louise subsequently convinced him to convert to Episcopalianism.[30]

Leahy helped commission the cruiser USS Tacoma but swapped assignments with an officer on the USS Boston so that he could remain in San Francisco with Louise, who was pregnant. Over the next two years the Boston cruised back and forth between San Francisco and Panama, where the Panama Canal was under construction. He was in Acapulco when their son and only child, William Harrington Leahy, was born on 27 October 1904, and did not see his son until five months later.[27][28][31] He was present for the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. His family had to leave their house in the face of the resulting fires. It survived undamaged, although they had to live in a hotel for several months before they could return.[32]

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President William H. Taft reviews a parade in San Francisco, California, 14 October 1911. Left to right: Rear Admiral Chauncey Thomas Jr., Leahy, Lillian Nordica, Archibald Butt and President Taft.
On 22 February 1907,[33] Leahy returned to Annapolis as instructor in the department of physics and chemistry.[34] He also coached the academy rifle team.[35] After two years ashore, he received orders on 14 August 1909, to return to San Francisco and sea duty as navigator of the armored cruiser USS California, commanded by Captain Henry T. Mayo,[33] in whom Leahy found a patron and a role model. In September, the California was one of eight ships that paid an official visit to Japan, where Leahy saw Admiral Heihachirō Tōgō. Mayo switched Leahy's assignment from navigator to gunnery officer.[36][37]

Leahy was promoted to lieutenant commander on 15 September 1909,[9] and in January 1911, the commander-in-chief of the Pacific Fleet, Rear Admiral Chauncey Thomas Jr., chose him as his fleet gunnery officer.[33] In October, the California returned to San Francisco for a fleet review in honor of President William Howard Taft, and Leahy served as Taft's temporary naval aide for four days.[38][37]

Banana Wars
Rear Admiral William H. H. Southerland succeeded Thomas as commander of the Pacific Fleet on 21 April 1912. The California sailed to Manila and then to Japan before returning to San Francisco on 15 August. A few weeks later, Southerland received orders to proceed to Nicaragua and be prepared to deploy a landing force for the United States occupation of Nicaragua.[39] Along with his duties as gunnery officer, Leahy became the chief of staff of the expeditionary force and the commander of the small garrison at Corinto, Nicaragua.[40] He came under fire while repeatedly escorting reinforcements and supplies over the railroad line to León. Privately, he thought that the United States was backing the wrong side, propping up a conservative elite who were exploiting the Nicaraguan people.[41]

In October 1912, Leahy came ashore in Washington, D.C., as assistant director of gunnery exercises and engineering competitions. Then, in 1913, Mayo had him assigned to the Bureau of Navigation as a detail officer.[42] Mayo and then his replacement, Rear Admiral William Fullam, were reassigned, leaving Leahy as the acting chief of the bureau. It was one of the Navy's most sensitive offices, as it controlled officer assignments. Leahy's wife Louise enjoyed the social milieu of Washington, and socialized with Addie Daniels, the wife of Josephus Daniels, the Secretary of the Navy. Leahy established a close friendship with the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt.[43]

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With Major C. S. Hill (right) on the deck of the USS California in August 1912
As Leahy's three-year tour of shore duty approached its end in 1915, he hoped to command the new destroyer tender USS Melville but Daniels had the assignment changed to command of the Secretary of the Navy's dispatch gunboat, the USS Dolphin. Leahy assumed command of the Dolphin on 18 September 1915. The ship took part in the United States occupation of Haiti, where Leahy again acted as chief of staff, this time to Rear Admiral William B. Caperton. In May 1916, Dolphin participated in the occupation of the Dominican Republic too.[44] During the summer, Roosevelt used it as his family yacht, cruising down the Hudson River from the Roosevelt family estate in Hyde Park, New York, and along the coast to his holiday house on Campobello Island.[45] Leahy was promoted to commander on 29 August 1916.[9]

World War I
Following the United States entry into World War I In April 1917, Dolphin was sent to the United States Virgin Islands to assert America's control there. There was a rumor that a Danish-flagged freighter in the vicinity, the Nordskov, was a German merchant raider in disguise, and Dolphin was sent to investigate. If it had been, Leahy would have been outgunned, but an inspection determined that the rumors were false. In July 1917, Leahy became the executive officer of USS Nevada. It was the Navy's newest battleship, but it was not sent to Europe due to teething troubles with its new design and a shortage of fuel oil in Britain.[45]

In April 1918 Leahy assumed command of a troop transport, the USS Princess Matoika. Shortly before it was due to depart for France, Leahy was summoned to Washington, D.C., by the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), Admiral William S. Benson, who offered him the position of the Navy's director of gunnery. Leahy told him that he wanted to remain on the Princess Matoika. A compromise was reached; Leahy was permitted to cross the Atlantic once before becoming director of gunnery. Traveling in convoy, the Princess Matoika reached Brest on 23 May 1918, and disembarked its troops.[45] Leahy was awarded the Navy Cross "for distinguished service in the line of his profession as commanding officer of the USS Princess Matoika, engaged in the important, exacting and hazardous duty of transporting and escorting troops and supplies to European ports through waters infested with enemy submarines and mines during World War I."[46]

Leahy returned to the United States,[47] where he was promoted to captain on 1 July 1918,[9] and soon after was on his way back to Europe to confer with representatives of the Royal Navy and discuss their gunnery practices. He reached London later that month, where he reported to the U.S. Navy commander in Europe, Vice Admiral William S. Sims, who had been a critic of the Navy's gunnery in the Spanish-American War.[48] Leahy met with his British counterpart, Captain Frederic Dreyer, and the chief gunnery officer of the Anglo-American Grand Fleet, Captain Ernle Chatfield.[49]

Leahy was attached to the staff of Rear Admiral Hugh Rodman, the commander of the American division of the Grand Fleet, and was able to view a gunnery exercise from the British battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth.[48] On the way home he visited Paris, where he was appalled at the German use of a long-range gun to bombard the city, which he considered an indiscriminate targeting of civilians and militarily useless. He embarked for home on the SS Leviathan at Brest on 12 August 1918.[49]

Sea duty between the wars
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Leahy shakes hands with Admiral Joseph M. Reeves (left) on assuming command of the Battle Force in June 1936.
In February 1921, Leahy sailed for Europe, where he assumed command of the cruiser USS Chattanooga on 2 April. In May he was ordered to take command of the cruiser USS St. Louis, the flagship of the naval detachment in Turkish waters during the Greco-Turkish War. He was able to spend a couple of weeks in the French countryside with Louise, who spoke fluent French, before taking the Orient Express to Constantinople, where he reported to the American commander there, Rear Admiral Mark L. Bristol, on 30 May.[50] Leahy had the role of safeguarding American interests in Turkey. He had to play the diplomat, attending parties and receptions, and organizing American events. He reveled in this assignment.[51]

The next step in a successful naval career would normally have been to attend the Naval War College. Leahy submitted repeated requests but was never sent.[52] At the end of 1921, he was given command of the minelayer USS Shawmut and concurrent command of Mine Squadron One. He then returned to Washington, D.C., where he served as director of Officer Personnel in the Bureau of Navigation from 1923 to 1926.[53] After three years of shore duty, he was given command of the battleship USS New Mexico. In biennial competitions in gunnery, engineering and battle efficiency, the New Mexico won all three in 1927–1928.[54]

Flag officer
On 14 October 1927, he reached flag rank, the first member of his cadet class to do so, and returned to Washington as the Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance. The following year he bought a town house on Florida Avenue near Dupont Circle for $20,000 (equivalent to $370,000 in 2024).[55] He also had assets that he had acquired through his marriage to Louise: stocks in the Colusa County Bank and agricultural land in the Sacramento Valley in California.[56] In the wake of the Wall Street crash of 1929, President Herbert Hoover determined to effect cuts in the Navy's budget, and his representative, Rear Admiral William V. Pratt, negotiated the London Naval Treaty that limited naval construction. The list of canceled ships included two aircraft carriers, three cruisers, a destroyer and six submarines. Leahy was in charge of implementing these cuts, and he was appalled at the human toll; some 5,000 workers lost their jobs, many of them highly skilled shipyard workers who faced long-term unemployment during the Great Depression.[57][58]

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Leahy and Admiral William H. Standley shake hands after Leahy is sworn in as the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington, D.C., in January 1937.
Admiral Charles F. Hughes elected to retire rather than enforce the cuts, and he was replaced by Pratt. Pratt and Leahy soon clashed over cuts to shipbuilding, and Pratt attempted to have Leahy reassigned as chief of staff of the Pacific Fleet. Leahy had the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation block this, but decided that it would be in his best interest to get away from Pratt, and he secured command of the destroyers of the Scouting Force on the West Coast in 1931.[57][58] Leahy's dislike of Hoover was intensified by his dire personal circumstances. He could not find a tenant for the Florida Avenue property at a rent that would pay for its upkeep;[59] the price of food had fallen so much that his land in the Sacramento Valley could not generate a profit, and was seized by the government to recover unpaid taxes;[60] and a run on the bank in January 1933 caused the Colusa County Bank to close its doors, taking with it Leahy's life savings, and leaving him with a large debt that he would not pay off until 1941.[61]

Roosevelt was inaugurated as president on 4 March 1933, and he nominated Leahy as the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation.[62] On 6 May 1933, Leahy and Louise boarded a train back to Washington, D.C.[63] As bureau chief, Leahy handled personnel matters with care and consideration. When his successor as the Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance, Rear Admiral Edgar B. Larimer, suffered a mental breakdown and was hospitalized, Leahy ensured that he was kept on the active list until he reached retirement age, thereby safeguarding his pension. When two midshipmen at Annapolis, John Hyland and Victor Krulak, faced expulsion for failing to reach the required minimum height of 5 feet 6 inches (168 cm), Leahy waived the regulations to permit them to graduate with the class of 1934, and both went on to have distinguished careers.[62]

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Discussing naval expansion with Congressmen and the President in Washington, D.C., on 5 January 1938: (left to right) Carl Vinson, Edward T. Taylor, William B. Umstead, Charles Edison and Leahy
Leahy formed a good working relationship with the new Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Henry L. Roosevelt, an Annapolis graduate and distant cousin of the President whom Leahy considered a close personal friend,[62] but he clashed with the new CNO, Admiral William H. Standley, who sought to assert the power of the CNO over the bureau chiefs. In this he was opposed by Leahy and the Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics, Rear Admiral Ernest J. King, who enlisted the aid of Henry Roosevelt and the Secretary of the Navy, Claude A. Swanson, to block it.[64] In 1936, the commander-in-chief United States Fleet (CINCUS), Admiral Joseph M. Reeves recommended Leahy for the position of Commander Battleships Battle Force, with the rank of vice admiral. Standley was opposed to this,[64] but was unable to persuade Swanson or the President, who invited Leahy to a private chat at the White House before proceeding to take up his new posting.[65]

Leahy assumed his new command on 13 July 1935.[66] In October Roosevelt came out to California for the California Pacific International Exposition. Leahy treated him to the largest fleet maneuver the U.S. Navy had ever carried out, with 129 warships, including 12 battleships, participating, which the President observed from the deck of the cruiser USS Houston.[67] On 30 March 1936, Leahy was promoted to the temporary rank of admiral and hoisted his four-star flag on the battleship USS California as Commander Battle Force.[68][69][70] One of his last acts in this post was a symbolic one: he transferred his flag to the aircraft carrier USS Ranger as a sign of his conviction that aircraft were now an integral part of sea power.[71]

Chief of Naval Operations
In December 1935, Swanson told Leahy in confidence that he would be appointed the next CNO if Roosevelt won the 1936 presidential election.[67] Roosevelt won the election with a landslide victory,[72] and on 10 November 1936, it was announced that Leahy would succeed Standley as CNO on 1 January 1937.[73] As CNO, Leahy was content to let the bureau chiefs function as they always had, acting as a primus inter pares.[74][75] Swanson was chronically ill, and Henry Roosevelt died on 22 February 1936.[76] Charles Edison became the new assistant secretary, but he lacked experience in naval affairs.[77]

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Appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington, D.C., on 22 March 1939, in support of military aid to the Latin American republics: (left to right) George C. Marshall, Leahy, Key Pittman and Sumner Welles
Leahy began representing the Navy in cabinet meetings.[78] He met with the President frequently; during his tenure as CNO, Roosevelt had 52 meetings with Leahy, compared with twelve with his Army counterpart, General Malin Craig, and none of the meetings with Craig were private lunches. Meetings between Leahy and Roosevelt were sometimes on matters unrelated to the Navy, and they frequently went on for hours. At one private lunch on 15 April 1937, Leahy and Roosevelt debated whether new battleships should have 16-inch (410 mm) or (cheaper) 14-inch (360 mm) guns. Leahy ultimately persuaded the President that the new North Carolina-class battleships should have 16-inch guns. On 22 May, Leahy accompanied the President and dignitaries including John Nance Garner, Harry Hopkins, James F. Byrnes, Morris Sheppard, Edwin C. Johnson, Claude Pepper and Sam Rayburn on a cruise on the presidential yacht USS Potomac to watch a baseball game between congressmen and the press.[79][80]

The most important issue confronting the administration was how to respond to the Japanese invasion of China. The commander-in-chief of the Asiatic Fleet, Admiral Harry Yarnell, asked for four more cruisers to help evacuate American citizens from the Shanghai International Settlement, but the Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, thought this would be too provocative. Leahy went to Hyde Park to take the matter up with Roosevelt. The request was turned down: American isolationist sentiment was too strong to countenance the risk of being drawn into the conflict; Yarnell could use merchant ships, if he could find them. Leahy accepted this presidential decision, as he always did, even when he strongly disagreed.[79][81] Leahy wrote in his diary that a Japanese threat to bomb the civilian population in China was "evidence, and a conclusive one, that the old accepted rules of warfare are no longer in effect."[82]

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Roosevelt presents Leahy with the Navy Distinguished Service Medal on 28 July 1939.
On 12 December, Leahy was informed of the USS Panay incident, in which an American gunboat on the Yangtze River had been sunk by Japanese aircraft. He met with Hull to craft a response, and discussed the matter with Roosevelt on 14 December.[83] Leahy saw the Panay incident as a test of American resolve. He wanted to answer it with a show of force, economic sanctions and a naval blockade of Japan. But among Roosevelt's advisors, he was the only one willing to countenance such a drastic step. Roosevelt agreed with him, but with uncertain midterm elections coming up in 1938 he felt he could not afford to antagonize the pacifists and isolationists. The Japanese apology therefore was accepted.[84]

The Panay incident did prompt Roosevelt and Leahy to press ahead with plans for an ambitious shipbuilding program. On 5 January, Roosevelt, Leahy and Edison met with Congressman Carl Vinson to draw up a strategy for obtaining Congressional approval for a 20 percent increase in all classes of warships. The resulting Second Vinson Act was approved in May 1938, and provided for four more Iowa-class battleships. Leahy had not thought it worthwhile to build more aircraft carriers, but five were added to what became the Two-Ocean Navy Act, together with five Montana-class battleships. Leahy pushed for the construction of 24 Cimarron class oilers, which would be needed to project American sea power across the Pacific.[85][86] Leahy joined Louise when she sponsored the first of these, the USS Cimarron, which was commissioned on 20 March 1939.[87]

Roosevelt threw a surprise party for Leahy on 28 July 1939, during which he presented him with the Navy Distinguished Service Medal.[88] According to Leahy, Roosevelt said: "Bill, if we have a war, you're going to be right back here helping me run it."[89] To make this easier, legislation was expedited to keep Leahy on the active list for another two years. On 1 August 1939, Admiral Harold Stark replaced Leahy as CNO.[88]