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Ernest Joseph King (23 November 1878 – 25 June 1956) was a fleet admiral in the United States Navy who served as Commander in Chief, United States Fleet (COMINCH) and Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) during World War II. He directed the United States Navy's operations, planning, and administration and was a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was the U.S. Navy's second-most senior officer in World War II after Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, who served as Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief. King served in the Spanish–American War while still attending the United States Naval Academy, from whence he graduated fourth in the class of 1901. He received his first command in 1914, of the destroyer USS Terry in the occupation of Veracruz. During World War I, he served on the staff of Vice Admiral Henry T. Mayo, the commander of the Atlantic Fleet. After the war, King was the head of the Naval Postgraduate School and commanded submarine divisions. He directed the salvage of USS S-51, earning the first of his three Navy Distinguished Service Medals, and later of the USS S-4. He qualified as a naval aviator in 1927, and was captain of the aircraft carrier USS Lexington. He then served as Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics. Following a period on the Navy's General Board, he became commander of the Atlantic Fleet in February 1941. Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, King was appointed as Commander in Chief of the United States Fleet, and in March 1942, he succeeded Admiral Harold R. Stark as Chief of Naval Operations, holding these two positions for the duration of the war. In December 1944, he became the second admiral to be promoted to the new rank of fleet admiral. He left active duty in December 1945 and died in Kittery, Maine in 1956. Early life and education Ernest Joseph King was born in Lorain, Ohio, on 23 November 1878, the second child of James Clydesdale King, a Scottish Immigrant from Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire, and his wife Elizabeth (Bessie) née Keam, an immigrant from Plymouth, England. His father initially worked as a bridge builder, but moved to Lorain, where he worked in a railway repair shop. An older brother died in infancy; he had two younger brothers and two younger sisters: Maude (who died aged seven), Mildred, Norman and Percy. The family moved to Uhrichsville, Ohio, when his father took a position with the Pennsylvania Railroad workshops, but returned to Lorain a year later. When King was eleven years old, the family moved to Cleveland, where his father was a foreman at the Valley Railway workshops, and King was educated at the Fowler School. He decided to go to work rather than high school, and took a position with a company that made typesetting machines. When it closed he went to work for his father. After a year, the family returned to Lorain, and King entered Lorain High School. He graduated as valedictorian in the Class of 1897; his commencement speech was titled "Uses of Adversity". The school was a small one; there were only thirteen classmates in his year. King secured an appointment to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, from his local Congressman, Winfield Scott Kerr, after passing physical and written examinations in Mansfield, Ohio, ahead of thirty other applicants. He entered Annapolis as a naval cadet on 18 August 1897. He acquired the nickname "Rey", the Spanish word for "king". While still at the Naval Academy, King served in the cruiser USS San Francisco during the Spanish–American War. During his senior year at the academy, he attained the rank of cadet lieutenant commander, the highest naval cadet ranking at that time. He graduated in June 1901, ranked fourth in his class of sixty-seven; Julius A. Furer was first. The graduation address was given by the Vice President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, who handed out the diplomas. Surface ships Graduates who had selected the U.S. Marine Corps were immediately commissioned as second lieutenants but the rest had to serve two years at sea before being commissioned as ensigns. King took a short course in torpedo design and operation at the Naval Torpedo Station at Newport, Rhode Island. He then became the navigator of the survey ship USS Eagle, which conducted surveys of Cienfuegos Bay in Cuba. An eye injury resulted in his being sent to the Brooklyn Naval Hospital. When he recovered, he was ordered to report to the battleship USS Illinois, which was berthed in Brooklyn. The Illinois was the flagship or Rear Admiral Arent S. Crowninshield, and King got to know his staff well. The staff offered him an assignment on the cruiser USS Cincinnati, which was headed overseas, bound for the Far East via the Suez Canal. The ship served in Korean and Chinese waters during the Russo-Japanese War. Bouts of heavy drinking led to him being put under hatches, and a forthright and arrogant attitude bordering on insubordination led to adverse comments in his fitness reports. On returning to the United States, King rejoined his fiancée, Martha Rankin ("Mattie") Egerton, a Baltimore socialite he had met while at the Naval Academy. They had become engaged in January 1903. She was living at West Point, New York, with her sister Florence, who had married an Army officer, Walter D. Smith. King and Egerton were married in a ceremony in the West Point Cadet Chapel on 10 October 1905. They had six daughters, Claire, Elizabeth, Florence, Martha, Eleanor and Mildred; and a son, Ernest Joseph King Jr. Mattie considered educated women to be vulgar. She took little interest in King's naval career, and confined her activities to her children and domestic affairs. King's next assignment was as a gunnery officer on the battleship USS Alabama. King became a critic of shipboard organization, which was largely unchanged since the days of sail. He published his thoughts in Some Ideas About Organization on Board Ship in the United States Naval Institute Proceedings, which won a prize for best essay in 1909. "The writer fully realizes the possible opposition," he wrote, "for if there is anything more characteristic of the navy than its fighting ability, it is its inertia to change, or conservatism, or the clinging to things that are old because they are old." In addition to a gold medal, the prize came with $500 (equivalent to $17,000 in 2023) and a lifetime membership of the United States Naval Institute. Due to the expansion of the navy, ensigns who had served three years at sea as an ensign became eligible for promotion to lieutenant; only the few who failed to pass the examinations were promoted to lieutenant (junior grade). This involved traveling to Washington, D.C., for ten days of physical examinations and tests of his professional knowledge in May 1906. The final hurdle was an appearance before the selection board, which drew attention to his record of punishments for drinking and insubordination, before congratulating him on his promotion, which became.... Discover the S J King popular books. Find the top 100 most popular S J King books.