Admiral "Bull" Halsey: The Life and Wars of the Navy's Most Controversial Commander

Fleet Admiral Halsey in 1945. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Center

ADMIRAL BULL HALSEY

THE LIFE AND WARS OF THE NAVY’S MOST CONTROVERSIAL COMMANDER

JOHN WUKOVITS

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To my daughter, Karen,

a constant source of pride

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction: When You Went in, the Japs Went Out

1 I Had No Other Thought Except Going into the Navy

2 Shoot First and We'll Argue Afterwards

3 Admiral Halsey's Seagoing Commandos

4 This Force Is Bound for Tokyo

5 A Knuckle-Swinger Like Halsey

6 I Will Stay on the Offensive

7 The Hunters Had Become the Hunted

8 Destruction of the Enemy Fleet Is the Principal Task

9 Attack Was His Watchword

10 A Wholly Frightening Situation

11 Victory Has Crowned Your Efforts

Notes

Sources

Index

Photosection appears between pages 142 and 143.

Map appears on page 168

PREFACE

I was first exposed to Admiral William F. Halsey during my undergraduate career, when a professor asked us to read a book of our choosing on modern U.S. history. After scanning the list of acceptable titles, I selected Halsey’s autobiography and settled in to read a fascinating account of the man and his wars.

Many historians have cast a spotlight on Halsey through the years, though they have focused primarily on Halsey’s disasters—his actions during typhoons, and his tactical behavior during the 1944 Battle of Leyte Gulf. In concentrating on those aspects, however, historians allow Halsey’s real or supposed faults to dwarf his other contributions for which, on their own, he merits significant admiration. During the war, Halsey was as much a home-front hero as any commander who served in the Pacific. One need only read the contemporary newspapers and magazines to observe Halsey’s profound impact on his fellow countrymen. His popularity rivaled the adulation later received by astronauts and film stars.

Halsey is neither hero nor villain. He is a mixture of both, which in the final assessment only makes him human. When the scales are balanced, however, Halsey deserves recognition as one of the Pacific War’s great figures, a man whose exploits deserve a place with Chester Nimitz, Douglas MacArthur, and other great military personalities.

One note about Halsey’s two books is required. While it is tempting to draw material from the autobiography Halsey published in 1947, I have leaned heavily on the personal memoir he wrote in preparation for the autobiography. The almost 700 typewritten pages of reminiscences are often poorly crafted and sometimes confusing, but they offer a compelling glimpse into the admiral’s thinking and what he considered crucial. The memoir has been overlooked for too long. Throughout this book I refer to the 1947 book as the autobiography and his unpublished reminiscences as his memoir.

Many individuals aided my efforts in conducting research for this biography. Archivists at the Library of Congress, the National Archives, the Chester Nimitz Library at the United States Naval Academy, and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library helped smooth the path. William T. Barr and other members of the USS Enterprise Association offered reminiscences and photographs of a man they recall fondly. My agent, Jim Hornfischer, brought a unique combination of expertise as both a literary agent and a skilled author of World War II volumes. The constructive comments of Alessandra Bastagli, my editor at Palgrave Macmillan, as well as of Palgrave Macmillan editors Colleen Lawrie and Yasmin Mathew, improved the manuscript.

As always, I will never forget the wise advice and deep friendship of two men who helped my writing career move from its infancy. My adviser at the University of Notre Dame, Dr. Bernard Norling, and historian/biographer Tom Buell gave of themselves in many ways so that my dreams of writing a book could come true. I consider myself fortunate in knowing two such kindly, beautiful human beings. Sadly, both are now gone, but I will cherish their memories with each word I craft.

I also enjoyed the support of loved ones throughout the process. My three daughters, Amy, Julie, and Karen, never let me forget how proud they are of my efforts. The thought that my four grandchildren, Matthew, Megan, Emma, and Kaitlyn, might benefit from the example of individuals about whom I write keeps me eager to continue my endeavors. My older brother, Tom, a naval aviator during the Vietnam War, lent a supportive ear as well as the helpful comments that only one in the military can render. The memories of my parents, Tom and Grace, as well as of my younger brother, Fred, prod me to produce a worthy work. Terri Faitel, my fiancée, scrutinizes my manuscript with the same thoroughness for which she is known as a mathematics scholar of national repute. To all I give my deepest thanks.

John F. Wukovits

Trenton, Michigan

December 1, 2009

INTRODUCTION

WHEN YOU WENT IN, THE JAPS WENT OUT

Admiral William F. Halsey was no stranger to momentous occasions, but he could recall few in his forty-one-year career in the United States Navy that matched the emotion of standing on the bridge of his flagship, USS Missouri, then floating off the Japanese coast that August 15, 1945, afternoon. After almost four years of warfare against a skilled enemy, aircraft aboard Halsey’s carriers remained still and guns lay silent. Victory, at last, had arrived.

Halsey, a commander filled with pride in his nation’s efforts and his men’s sacrifices, collected his thoughts in the moments before delivering a victory speech that would be broadcast to crews throughout his massive Third Fleet and to citizens in the United States. He now addressed a fleet that would have been unimaginable in the war’s early days, when he had collected the remnants of a navy that had been savagely mauled at Pearl Harbor and raced Pacific waters stemming the enemy’s advance. One of the few admirals who could claim that he commanded ships at sea on both the war’s opening day and its last, Halsey spoke of his 1942 raids against enemy-held land, when with nothing but indomitable courage and hope to support us, we left our mark on a cruel and treacherous enemy. We paved the way—we blazed the trail—for the overwhelming victories that have followed.

That afternoon, the admiral recounted his first visit, in late 1942, as commander in the South Pacific to the Marines on Guadalcanal, who, though exhausted from unrelenting combat against a merciless opponent, fought gallantly. With little to start with, we bore the brunt of the Japanese easternmost offensive in the Solomon Islands. We stopped them dead in their tracks.

He described how his Third Fleet rose from the ashes of Pearl Harbor to become the mightiest conglomeration of sea power in history. Armed with that potent arsenal, Halsey pursued the Japanese Imperial Navy until its tattered survivors hid in harbors and bays, hoping to evade the guns and bombs and bullets that Halsey inevitably brought.

Pausing for a moment, Halsey, reflective of what had become a cornerstone trait of his command, spoke of the affection he felt for the men serving under him. I am one of the oldest, if not the oldest, living naval officers actively engaged in any combat zone in the world, he said. You shall always occupy a special and honored space in my mind and heart. We have been through this trying time together. We have shared the good, we have shared the bad. We are brothers—blooded by our active participation in combat operations in an unprecedented naval war.

Halsey did not want to leave without giving credit to those upon whom the burdens of his commands fell. There are no words to a sailorman more expressive of the highest commendation than the Navy’s ‘Well Done.’ With great pride, gratitude, and thankfulness, I give to each and every one of you my sincere and heartfelt ‘Well Done.’ He assured his men that, To you belongs the credit and I shall do all within my limited powers to see you receive it.¹

It was no surprise that Halsey directed so much of his victory speech to the young men, some yet in their teenage years, who comprised his crews. As one top-ranking officer concluded, while some commanders are known as an admiral’s admiral, throughout the Navy, Halsey carried a reputation as being a sailor’s admiral.

That mutual fondness, however, reveals only a part of Halsey’s essence. For four long years of war Halsey was also the citizens’ admiral, a leader whose aggressiveness sated a nationwide vengeance sparked by the enemy’s startling December 7, 1941, assault on Pearl Harbor. In towns large and small, from his New Jersey birthplace to the West Coast, people related to the man’s stirring words and swift actions. Young and old, men and women, adopted Halsey as theirs, for at a time when the nation most needed a battler on the front lines, Halsey stood tall.

A 1944 note from a man called Owen Cedarburg of Bonne Terre, Missouri—one of the thousands of letters from citizens that inundated Halsey’s flag bridge during the war—reflected the fondness with which the nation embraced Halsey. Rejuvenated by Halsey’s valiant actions in the Pacific, Cedarburg wrote, Ever since I heard of your exploits I have liked you. I like your seagoing looks and the manner in which you fight and just about everything else. He added that, when you went in the Japs went out.²

CHAPTER 1

I HAD NO OTHER THOUGHT EXCEPT GOING INTO THE NAVY

William F. Halsey came by his combativeness honestly, for belligerence had nourished a family tree spotted with sea dogs and sinners. Though he counted spirits tame and bold among his forbearers—On one side I had a lot of Puritans and on the other a hard drinking, hard living set from around New York—the latter clearly caught his fancy. Halsey loved to relate anecdotes of those ancestors he described as seafarers and adventurers, big, violent men, impatient of the law, and prone to strong drink and strong language.¹

Halsey could have been talking of himself, for he exhibited those same traits throughout his life. He loved action the way previous generations of Halseys did. He resorted to profanity and drink, and when he thought of the sea, he thought of his ancestors’ manner of seamanship— sailors chanting sea ditties as they labored while sails snapped in the wind, and audacious captains staring adventure and danger in the face. Men were men, which to Halsey meant going where the fight and the grog flowed freely.

He felt a special kinship with individuals of strong, almost reckless, will combined with a penchant for the bottle. Captain John Halsey of Massachusetts especially intrigued the future admiral. After attacking French shipping for the British as a privateer during Queen Anne’s War (1702–1713), Captain Halsey continued his raiding in peacetime as an independent buccaneer. William Halsey later wrote, I enjoy reading how his little brigantine once took on four ships together and captured two of them, with $250,000 in booty.²

Halsey could even point with pride to the page mentioning his ancestor in a 1926 book on brigands, The History of the Lives and Bloody Exploits of the Most Noted Pirates. According to the volume, when John Halsey died of a fever in Madagascar in 1716, fellow sailors revered him so highly that they placed his sword and pistol in the coffin with the body and mounted a 46-gun-salute to honor the 46-year-old veteran of the seas. The book concluded that Captain Halsey was brave in his person, courteous to all his prisoners, lived beloved, and died regretted by his own people.³

A century later, Captain Eliphalet Halsey added to family sea lore when in 1815 he became the first to sail a Long Island whaler around South America’s Cape Horn into the Pacific. The Halseys had thus made a name on the Seven Seas in both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The current Halsey hoped that he, too, could record similar deeds in the twentieth century.

Halsey’s paternal grandfather, Charles Henry Halsey, was both a lawyer and an Episcopal minister. He married the daughter of the president of Columbia College, Eliza Gracie King, and they had either six or seven children depending upon which person or record you believe. The youngest, William Frederick Halsey, became the admiral’s father. While still in his early teens, William mentioned his desire to enter the Naval Academy. With the assistance of a family friend, he received an appointment to Annapolis and graduated in 1873.

In 1880 William Halsey married his childhood friend Anne Brewster, a direct descendant of William Brewster, the famed spiritual leader of Plymouth Colony. On October 30, 1882, the couple welcomed their firstborn child—William Frederick Halsey Jr., who was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

While he inherited a love of the sea from his father, Halsey’s mother proved to be the dominant influence in his life. The Navy might dispatch her husband to foreign ports—Halsey lived in six cities before he reached his teenage years—but she held the family together, dispensing advice to young William and his sister, Deborah, and making ends meet on the miserly income provided officers in the 1880s and 1890s. She always had very sterling qualities of right and wrong, he noted in his memoirs, and God only knows how she raised two children on $200 a month which we lived on for much of my childhood.⁴

After residing for two years in Elizabeth, New Jersey, while working at a hydrographic office, Lieutenant Halsey was assigned to duty aboard a survey vessel based in California. Anne Halsey remained behind to pack the family belongings, then accompanied the children for the grueling trip to California. The trio first boarded a transport that took them down the U.S. East Coast, then switched to a train to endure a sweltering crossing of the Isthmus of Panama, a dreaded stretch during which Anne constantly worried that her son and daughter would contract the deadly yellow fever. Once the family reached the west side of Panama, they boarded a second transport for the sea voyage north to California.

Despite the rigors of this journey, the younger Halsey, not yet of school age, loved the excitement offered by life at sea. His inquisitiveness prodded him into impromptu scouting expeditions, excursions that not only broke the monotony that came with lengthy voyages but also permitted him to inspect what lurked in the ship’s hold. On one of his outings he suddenly disappeared, causing a frantic Anne to worry that he had fallen overboard, but a thorough search by the ship’s crew unearthed the youth below, watching the ship’s butcher kill livestock for the day’s meal. It is reported that they found me with my shoes and stockings off wading in blood,⁵ remembered Halsey of his youthful adventure.

The family eventually settled in Coronado, California, a short distance from the Mexican border. There, Halsey entered kindergarten, where his boisterous nature often clashed with the classroom’s strictures and his fellow students’ taunts. His body seemed tailor made for heckling: a powerful upper torso featuring a barrel chest, muscled arms, and oversized head balanced precariously on short, stocky legs. Classmates delighted in calling him Billy Big Head in attempts to provoke a reaction. Being more Bowery Boy than altar boy, Halsey willingly obliged.

The sunny sojourn in California ended in 1891 when the Navy transferred Lieutenant Halsey to Annapolis, Maryland, to teach physics and chemistry. The young Halsey wasted little time finding trouble on the quaint city streets. He joined a neighborhood football team that called themselves Little Potatoes because we considered ourselves hard to peel,⁶ and he received a spanking from his father after breaking a string of street lights with his slingshot.

Halsey loved Annapolis. Ships cluttered the waters, sailors prowled the city streets, and in the midst, sparkling and shiny on its waterfront perch, stood the Academy. The more he absorbed the salty atmosphere, the more determined Halsey became to follow his father into the Naval Academy.

He selected a challenging path, for rarely in his school career did he let academics interrupt his fun. If classmates needed help in math or history, they looked elsewhere, but if they wanted someone to fire up the football team or to guarantee an amusing afternoon or evening, Halsey was their person.

MADAM, YOUR PRAYERS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED

As he approached his fifteenth birthday, the earliest a young man could then enter the Naval Academy, Halsey’s interest in attending Annapolis intensified. I had no other thought except going into the Navy, he recalled. I always intended going in the Navy ever since I can remember.⁷ The youth faced a monumental problem, however—since his father’s frequent relocations had constantly uprooted the family, he lacked the necessary political connections to gain a Congressional nomination. Undeterred, the young hopeful wrote every politician he could think of—including the president of the United States, William McKinley.

The fourteen-year-old Halsey pleaded his case in a January 26, 1897, letter to the president. I want to ask you, if you have not already promised all your appointments to the Naval Academy that you will give me one. He explained that the appointment from his district had already been filled, that his father currently served as a naval officer, and added, I know people do not like to give important positions such as this is away without knowing the person they are giving them to. But then you know that a naval officer would not keep his position long if he were not the right kind of man. Hoping to impress the president, Halsey mentioned a family connection with the current secretary of the Navy, then turned to sentiment. I have been with my father on shore and on ship board a great deal, and have always wanted to enter the Navy. Pulling out all stops, Halsey ended the letter with a hearty helping of flattery. It is almost needless to congratulate you on your grand victory [the presidential election of 1896] which every good American sees is for the best. It has been told you so many times by men it is hardly worth while for us boys to say it.⁸

The letter, remarkable for someone just entering high school, nevertheless failed to provoke a response from the president. Disheartened but not defeated, Halsey penned more letters to officials. When in the following summer his father returned from four years of duty in the Far East with the Asiatic Fleet, he added his entreaties, but lacking the appropriate connections, all failed. Lieutenant Halsey even enrolled his son in one of the numerous preparatory schools that existed solely to ready boys to take the harsh Academy entrance examinations, but that tactic also fell short of drawing an appointment. Near desperation, the family sent their son to medical school, hoping the step might permit easier entrance into the Navy as a medical officer. So in the fall of 1899, Halsey entered the medical school at the University of Virginia. But try as he might—and he never tried all that hard—Halsey could not put the classroom above his favorite pastimes. As he did throughout his military career, he applied himself to what he thought was important and avoided what he considered frivolous. Histology class lacked appeal, especially when fun and football lurked. The real Halsey appeared on the football field, a legal arena for the roughhousing and aggression he so loved. Though Halsey lacked the size and talent of a first-stringer, the coaches loved his spirit and recklessness. He charged through practices and games as if each play determined victory or defeat.

Halsey received a break in 1900 when Congress passed a bill permitting the president to name five additional appointees to the Academy. Anne Halsey sought the aid of family friend Edgar Grigg, then New Jersey’s attorney general. Grigg escorted Anne to the White House where, according to her son, she camped out in President McKinley’s office until she secured a promise of an appointment for me. The president agreed to meet with Mrs. Halsey, who told McKinley of her desire to see her son follow his father into the Navy and that, I have been praying. I have been praying very sincerely. McKinley replied, Madam, your prayers have been answered.⁹

With only the entrance exams standing between him and Annapolis, Halsey immersed himself in textbooks for one of the few times in his student life. I had to cram like the devil to pass the entrance examinations, but I managed to and was sworn in on July 7, 1900.¹⁰

THE SPECTACULAR SHOWING by the U.S. Navy during the Spanish-American War of 1898, in which its exploits handed the nation a ready-made Pacific empire, created both a feeling of pride in the Navy and a desire among politicians and the people to expand American interests around the globe. The elevation in 1901 of Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency handed the Navy a worthy ally. The young executive had avidly read Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan’s seminal The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1600–1783, and at age twenty-four he had written a highly regarded book about the Navy during the War of 1812. Roosevelt quickly turned his persuasive powers to convincing Congress to approve funds for one battleship a year and for expansion at the Naval Academy.

It was during this time of transition and expansion that Halsey entered the Academy. His was the last class to contain fewer than one hundred members, and after his group, the students would be called midshipmen, the term employed by Great Britain’s Royal Navy, rather than naval cadets.

Starkness and rigidity defined the Academy. Founded in 1845, the institution rests on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, which provides a perfect location for training seamen. Cadets lived in spartan rooms that contained wooden table desks, unpainted chairs, a wash basin, and iron beds. A book titled Regulations of the United States Naval Academy listed hundreds of infractions in twenty-two pages of small print.

Halsey quickly made a mark at the Academy—as always, outside the classroom rather than inside. Fellow cadets continued the process begun by Halsey’s elementary school tormentors by teasing him about his immense head, but updated the criticism by stating that he looks like a figurehead of Neptune.¹¹ A photograph of the time shows that a heavy jaw dominated the lower half of his face, while thick eyebrows camouflaged deep-set, piercing blue eyes. Neatly combed hair swept to the right across his forehead, underneath which beamed a face exuding confidence.

Halsey, now grown to six feet, encountered few difficulties adapting to the rigid atmosphere. Whenever a social event occurred, the fun-loving Halsey could be found directly in the middle, laughing and slapping classmates on the back. He considered demerits for infractions a necessary evil to be tolerated, not a deterrent to fear. In his second year alone he amassed an alarming number of demerits, usually for offenses such as smoking, being late for formations, or talking in the ranks. Not surprisingly, at a time when 4.0 was perfect and 2.5 was considered barely passing, Halsey floundered in the lower half of his class, often perilously approaching failing grades.

Halsey could not comfortably operate in a rigid curriculum that stifled individual initiative and creativity, qualities he had in abundance. Since instructors lacked experience in classroom skills, having typically been career naval officers rather than educators, they usually taught in the same fashion as their predecessors, with a heavy emphasis on memorization. For a free spirit such as Halsey, who would have better thrived in an environment that challenged pre-existing ideas and formulated fresh ways to examine problems, the Academy’s dry tedium was oppressive.

The only time Halsey’s ears perked up was when classroom discussion focused on one topic. With U.S. possessions scanning the Pacific from Hawaii to the Philippines, instructors often debated strategy with their next likely enemy—Japan. They also pointed to British Admiral Horatio Nelson as the model officer to emulate. Nelson, said Halsey’s teachers, best combined the attributes of triumphant leaders—the willingness to fight, an absolute trust in the officers under him, and a concern for the welfare of his men.

A controversy that rocked the Navy in the early years of the century would later benefit Halsey. Following the spectacular naval defeat over Spain in 1898 two American commanders—Commodore Winfield Scott Schley and Acting Rear Admiral William T. Sampson—distastefully vied for the honors that ensued. Their vehement arguments, in which each man contended that he had been in charge for the crucial victory in Santiago, Cuba, split the Navy into two camps, provoked an official court of inquiry, and turned the Navy into a laughingstock in the nation’s newspapers. Only President Theodore Roosevelt’s edict to end the quarreling prevented the feud from becoming worse.

Though Halsey took little apparent notice of the Sampson-Schley controversy, another midshipman at the Academy did. One year behind Halsey, future Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz hated watching his beloved Navy torn apart. He vowed that if he ever became a commander, he would never allow a similar controversy to demoralize the Navy as this one had done. In 1944, Nimitz would face such a predicament involving Halsey.

Football led the list of his extracurricular activities. The coaches admired his grit, which even monstrous athletes could not break, but a lack of talent and size confined Halsey to the bench until an injury to the starting fullback handed him the opportunity to play. Halsey held the spot for the next two years.

One activity that held Halsey’s attention was the annual summer cruise. Rather than some obscure piece of information to be memorized for a classroom examination, summer cruises offered Halsey a practical application of knowledge, something tangible that could be used by a seaman. Let others scrutinize past campaigns and memorize elaborate equations—he would take the open seas and action any day.

He called the cruises a delight and claimed they turned cadets from landlubbers to real sailormen.¹² Veteran officers and sailors passed along the intricacies of life at sea to Halsey and his classmates, from the engines in the ship’s bowels that powered the craft to the signal flags high above. The ships were floating classrooms, but Halsey relished the experience, for here he was doing what he had come to the Academy to learn. He rapidly excelled in navigation, surpassing the performances of fellow cadets who routinely posted better grades in the classroom.

Like every other cadet, Halsey spent half his time on a steamship, normally the battleship USS Indiana or USS Massachusetts, and the other on a sailing ship, usually the USS Chesapeake. The leadership talents that had lain dormant in an academic setting burst into life on the water, and Halsey steadily received more responsibilities with each cruise. By the time of his third and last cruise, Halsey had been placed in charge of the main top, the second highest job that could be given a cadet in his final year. Classroom instructors may not have noticed anything spectacular about Halsey, but superiors at sea spotted inherent leadership talent. Halsey appeared to have a natural gift for command.

During one of the cruises, filled with a sense of importance over finally being at sea, Halsey and a group of friends decided to get tattoos. They headed to the ship’s unofficial tattoo artist, a sailor then in the brig for drunkenness, who agreed to etch an anchor onto their shoulders. The anchor’s chain formed an 04, Halsey’s graduation class, with a red USNA perched on the crown. It was hard to tell which was filthier, Halsey wrote of the sailor who drew his tattoo, he or his instruments, and Lord knows why we all didn’t die of blood poisoning.¹³

I WISH YOU ALL THE LUCK IN THE WORLD

Halsey’s 1904 yearbook, Lucky Bag, described him the way his fellow students viewed the budding officer—full of life and ready for action. The yearbook mentioned that Halsey, nicknamed Willie or Pudge, was involved in as many activities as anyone in the class and held offices in numerous clubs. For his efforts, Halsey received the Thompson Trophy Cup, awarded each year to the first-classman who most promoted athletics. A real old salt,¹⁴ the Lucky Bag called him.

In order to hasten new officers into Roosevelt’s refurbished Navy, Halsey’s class graduated on February 2, 1904, rather than in June. His ranking of forty-third out of the sixty-two who graduated to become passed midshipmen was far from illustrious. Other than his successes in the summer cruises, he had achieved little to mark him as a man to watch. At the graduation ceremony the Chief Master at Arms at the Academy, a gruff ex-Marine sergeant whose ferocious demeanor kept every cadet at arm’s length, shook Halsey’s hand and said, Mr. Halsey, I wish you all the luck in the world, but you can never be as good a naval officer as you[r] dad.¹⁵

Halsey had a chance to disprove the chief ’s opinion with his first post—duty aboard the battleship USS Missouri (BB–11), one of the most coveted spots in the Navy. Since the ship was due to leave for Cuba for winter training only five days after graduation, Halsey had to forego the normal one-month leave granted graduates and race to join the ship. Fittingly, forty-one years later Halsey would end his seagoing career aboard another vessel bearing the same name.

Halsey’s first night at sea, where he served the mid-watch on the bridge during a stormy night, severely tested the young officer. He battled nerves, the uncertainty of a new duty, and the elements. I didn’t like anything about the Navy after those first four hours up there in the cold, the rain, and the blizzard and my trying to do something and not knowing what to do or what I was supposed to do.¹⁶

From Cuba, the battleship steamed to Pensacola, Florida, for target practice, where an incident occurred that affected Halsey for the rest of his life. On Friday, April 13, 1904, while he served as junior officer of the deck, a deadly explosion in the 12-inch gun turret during target practice killed thirty-six men. Upon hearing the eruption, Halsey glanced behind to see a sheet of fire shoot several hundred feet into the sky from the top hatch. Flames engulfed one enlisted man standing on the turret, who either jumped or was thrown overboard by the explosion. Halsey watched helplessly as the man, shrouded in flames, disappeared beneath the waves.

A second blast, stronger than the first, rattled the ship when burning powder plunged down the turret well into the handling room and ignited four 90-pound powder bags. The fierce explosions blackened the handling room and roasted to death the men working there. Sailors rushed in with fire equipment, but the damage had already been done.

Superiors ordered Halsey to investigate the scene as soon as the fires had been extinguished. The task, which required him to wade in the hip-deep water littered with charred bodies and debris, sickened him. "I went down to the handling room and it was rather a God-awful sight. The water by that time was somewheres [sic] between the waist and knees. There were