Preface

I now discharge my promise, and complete my design, of writing the History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Eighteen years have elapsed since I was commissioned in the Navy by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to do this task; thirteen years since the first volume came off the press. Fortunately good health, excellent assistance and the constant support and encouragement of my beloved wife, Priscilla Barcon Morison, have enabled me to keep up a rate of production better than one volume a year.

A complete list of my assistants, with the exception of those who were given short temporary assignments, follows: --

Captain Bern Anderson USN, May 1952 to June 1960
Specialist 1st class Elinor M. Ball, April 1946 to April 1947
Dr. K. Jack Bauer, May 1957 to present
Commander Alexander C. Brown USNR, March 1945 to June 1946
Yeoman 1st class Antha EW. Card W-USNR, March 1944 to September 1956
Yeoman 1st class Herbert M. Donaldson USNR, February 1946 to August 1948
Specialist 1st class Jane M. Donnelly, W-USNR, May 1946 to April 1947
Seaman 1st class Lawrence O. Donovan USNR, August 1945 to April 1946
Lieutenant Richard E. Downs USNR, May 1946 to April 1947
Commander George M. Elsey USNR, March to July 1944, and February to August 1949

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Lieutenant Albert Harkness Jr. USNR, January 1946 to April 1947
Yeoman 3rd class Alexander D. Henderson USNR, August 1945 to May 1946
Yeoman 2nd class Edward Leford USN, November 1956 to July 1958
Lieutenant Philip K. Lundeberg USNR, June 1948 and January to June 1950
Chief Yeoman Donald R. Martin USNR, February 1943 to present
Ensign Richard S. Pattee USNR, June 1948 to June 1952
Lieutenant Commander Roger Pineau USNR, July 1947 to August 1957
Lieutenant Commander Henry D. Reck USNR, February 1944 to September 1948
Lieutenant Commander Henry Salomon Jr. USNR, February 1943 to December 1947
Yeoman 1st class Roger F. Schofield USN, September 1953 to November 1956
Commander James C. Shaw USN, November 1947 to June 1950

I also owe a debt of gratitude to Rear Admiral John B. Hoffernan and Rear Admiral Ernest M. Eller, Directors of Naval History, under whom this History has been written. Fortunate indeed for an historian to have, as Directors, naval officers who are scholars themselves, and with whom he enjoyed the intimate relations of shipmate and friend during the period of hostilities.

The Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island, under its successive presidents from Admiral Raymond A. Spruance (1945) to Vice Admiral Stuart H. Ingersoll (1960), has allotted office space for Captain Anderson and myself. The facilities of the drafting

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room and cartographers, including Mr. Richard A. Gould, who did the maps for this volume, have also been available and extensively used. This association with the War College and its excellent library and staff has been a very pleasant and valuable experience.

Mr. Vernon E. Davis of the J.C.S. Historical Division helped me to unravel the tangle of events leading to the surrender of Japan.

Captain E. John Long USNR procured many of the illustrations.

Mr. Dean C. Allard, head of the Historical Records Branch of the Division of Naval History, has been most patient and helpful under my repeated requests.

Almost as important as those who actually worked on the research has been Miss Elizabeth Humphreys of Little, Brown and Company. She has copy-read the manuscript of each volume, and greatly improved it through her unerring scent for solecism, contradictions and lack of uniformity in typographical style.

Writing the present volume began off Okinawa, an operation in which I participated on board Admiral Deyo's flagship Tennessee, as a member of the staff of her C.O., Captain John B. Heffernan. Before that operation was over I visited Iwo Jima, and spent some time at Fleet Admiral Nimitz's headquarters at Guam, reading action reports and talking with participants. After the end of the war I concentrated on the earlier years, and only returned to the subject matter of this volume in 1959. In it I have been particularly helped by Captain Bern Anderson, Dr. K. Jack Bauer and Mr. Donald R. Martin. Captain (now Rear Admiral) Anderson did much of the research for the text. Mr. Martin prepared Appendix I, and Dr. Bauer, Appendix II.

It must be repeated that this is not in the usual sense of the word an "official history", nor am I an "official historian". I was commissioned in the Naval Reserve in 1942 with the special mission to write it and I have continued so to do as a civilian since my retirement from active duty in 1946. The Navy has given me every facility, but has not attempted to prejudice my conclusions or set the pattern of my writing, Little, Brown and Company of Boston, publishers of the

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classic works of Alfred Thayer Mahan, accepted this series as a regular publishing venture. The royalties are paid to the Navy, which has set them aside in a special capital fund which will bed used to promote research and writing in United States Naval History.

This is the final narrative volume of the series. It will be followed by Volume XV, General Index and Supplement, which will contain (1) a general index of the entire series, including the task organizations which were not indexed in the separate volumes, (2) a descriptions of different types of combatant ships, auxiliaries and naval airplanes used in World War II, (3) a summary of post-surrender operations in the Pacific, and (4) a cumulative list of errata, which will enable possessors of first editions to bring them up to date. So I make a special request to readers to send in promptly and additional errata that they may discover.

All times in the volume are of zone "Item" (Greenwich minus 9) and dates are east longitude dates, except where I am describing events in the United States itself.

Sources generally used without specific citation are the Action Reports and War Diaries of individual ships and commands, and the Cincpac Monthly Intelligence Summary, which was prepared by a staff under Captain Ralph C. Parker.

* * *

Every sailor must have a shore base whence he shoves off and whither, from time to time, he returns. From my base in Boston, where "every street leads down to the sea", I set sail in U.S.S. Buck in 1942 on the first leg of a long voyage. She went down in 1944; many of my old shipmates have departed; but I have been allowed to complete my voyage and my ,mission. So, thankful for past favors and hopeful for the future, I pick up my old mooring buoy and row ashore, happy to have reached home safely.

Samuel E. Morison

44 Brimmer Street
Boston, Massachusetts
February, 1960

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