Background

Raymond Ames Spruance was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 3, 1886 to Alexander and Annie Hiss Spruance. The son of a reclusive father, Raymond was reared by his mother and three spinster aunts.

Education

Spruance showed an early talent for writing poetry. He attended Indianapolis public schools and finished Shortridge High School. After further schooling at the Stevens Preparatory School in New Jersey, Spruance applied to and was accepted by the US Naval Academy in 1903. He studied hard, and when he graduated in September 1906, he stood 26th in his class.

Career

After serving aboard the battleship Iowa, Spruance went on a world cruise aboard the battleship Minnesota. He was commissioned an ensign in 1908, and during a tour of shore duty he took a postgraduate course in electrical engineering in Schenectady, New York. Spruance was then ordered to the China station, with sea duty aboard the battleship Connecticut and the cruiser Cincinnati. The young, ambitious officer was then assigned to Bainbridge, U.S. destroyer No. 1, and he commanded her until 1914. That same year he received a new assignment as an assistant machinery inspector at the Newport News, Virginia, dry dock, where the battleship Pennsylvania was being outfitted. When she went to sea in 1916, he went with her.

Promoted to lieutenant commander in August 1917, Spruance never saw action during World War I. During the last year of World War I, he became Assistant Engineer Officer of the New York Navy Yard. The study of foreign methods of naval fire control, took him to London and Edinburgh. In 1919 he was made executive officer of the USS Agamemnon, bringing troops home from France. His next assignment was command of the destroyer Aaron Ward, and then USS Percival. His tour of sea duty ended in 1922.

Spruance also held several engineering, intelligence, staff and Naval War College positions up to the 1940s. He spent the years 1922 - 1924 with the Navy Department's Bureau of Engineering and the Doctrine of Aircraft board. Then followed two years as assistant chief of staff to the commander of naval forces in Europe; a year of study at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, where he completed the senior course; and two years of duty in the Office of Naval Intelligence.

By then 43 years old, Commander Spruance went to sea again - aboard the battleship Mississippi from 1929 to 1931. Then he returned to the Naval War College as a staff member. Promoted to captain the following year, he departed to take the position of Chief of Staff and Aide to Commander Destroyers, Scouting Fleet in May 1933.

Two years later, Spruance again received orders for the Naval War College and taught on the staff until April 1938. He then was again ordered to sea aboard Mississippi. This was in July 1938, and this time he was the battleship's commander. By 1939, at the age of 53, Spruance had spent 18 years at sea. That December he was elevated to rear admiral, and in February 1940 he was placed in command of the 10th Naval District (Caribbean), with his headquarters in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The following year, the new admiral was ordered to the Pacific.

Taking command of Cruiser Division Five at Pearl Harbor in September 1941, he served as the surface screen commander for Adm. William F. Halsey during the early months of the war. When his friend Halsey was temporarily ill, Spruance took command of the American carrier force that fought and won the most crucial and decisive naval engagement of World War II: the June 1942 Battle of Midway.

At Midway, Spruance's force inflicted on the Imperial Japanese Navy its worst setback in 350 years. Four fleet carriers and the heavy cruiser Mikuma were sunk; a cruiser, three destroyers, an oiler and a battleship were damaged. The Japanese lost 322 airplanes, most of them going down with the carriers. The American losses were Yorktown, destroyer Hammann and 147 planes. Midway bought the United States valuable time until the new Essex-class fleet carriers became available at the end of the year. Above all, Midway was the turning point that heralded the ultimate defeat of Japan.

In August 1943, Spruance, now a vice admiral, returned to sea as Commander Central Pacific Force (on April 29, 1944, was redesignated as the Fifth Fleet). Overseeing the Battle of Tarawa in November 1943, he guided Allied forces as they advanced through the Gilbert Islands. This was followed by an assault on Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands on January 31, 1944. Successfully concluding operations, Spruance was promoted to admiral in February.

That same month, he directed Operation Hailstone which saw American carrier aircraft repeatedly strike the Japanese base at Truk. During the attacks, the Japanese lost twelve warships, thirty-two merchant ships, and 249 aircraft. In April, Nimitz divided command of the Central Pacific Force between Spruance and Halsey. While one was at sea, the other would be planning their next operation. As part of this reorganization, the force became known as the Fifth Fleet when Spruance was in charge and the Third Fleet when Halsey was in command.

Moving forward in mid-1944, Spruance embarked on a campaign in the Marianas Islands. Landing troops on Saipan on June 15, he defeated Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa at the Battle of the Philippine Sea a few days later. In the fighting, the Japanese lost three carriers and around 600 aircraft. The defeat effectively destroyed the Japanese Navy's air arm.

Following the campaign, Spruance turned the fleet over to Halsey and began planning operations to capture Iwo Jima. As his staff worked, Halsey used the fleet to win the Battle of Leyte Gulf. In January 1945, Spruance resumed command of the fleet and began moving against Iwo Jima. On February 19, American forces landed and opened the Battle of Iwo Jima. Mounting a tenacious defense, the Japanese held out for over a month.

With the island's fall, Spruance immediately moved forward with Operation Iceberg. This saw Allied forces move against Okinawa in the Ryukyu Islands. Close to Japan, Allied planners intended to use Okinawa as a springboard for the eventual invasion of the Home Islands. On April 1, Spruance began the Battle of Okinawa.

Maintaining a position offshore, the Fifth Fleet's ships were subjected to relentless kamikaze attacks by Japanese aircraft. As Allied forces battled on the island, Spruance's ships defeated Operation Ten-Go on April 7 which saw the Japanese battleship Yamato attempt to break through to the island. With Okinawa's fall in June, Spruance rotated back to Pearl Harbor to begin planning the invasion of Japan. These plans proved moot when the war came to an abrupt end in early August with the use of the atom bomb.

After the war, Admiral Spruance held command of the Pacific Fleet in late 1945 and early 1946. He then served as the president of the Naval War College until his retirement. Called out of retirement, Spruance served as the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines (1952–55) before retiring once again. He then lived quietly at Pebble Beach until December 13, 1969, when he died of arteriosclerosis at the age of 83.

Achievements

• Spruance's near‐flawless performance of command during two critical battles in World War II - the Battle of Midway and the Battle of the Philippine Sea - marked him as one of the U.S. Navy's great commanders. His decisions during the Battle of Midway were important to its outcome, which changed the course of the war with Japan. While holding the command of the Central Pacific Force, which became the Fifth Fleet in 1943-45, with USS Indianapolis (CA-35) as his usual flagship, Spruance directed the campaigns that captured the Gilberts, Marshalls, Marianas, Iwo Jima and Okinawa and defeated the Japanese fleet in the June 1944 Battle of Philippine Sea.
  
  For the victory at Midway, Spruance was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. The planning and execution of the attack on the Gilbert Islands in November 1943, brought him a gold star in lieu of a second Distinguished Service Medal. For the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, he was awarded the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism.
  
  In October 1946 Spruance was awarded the Army’s Distinguished Service Medal for his exceptionally meritorious and distinguished services during the capture of the Marshall and Mariana Islands. He was decorated with Order of Leopold and Croix de Guerre with Palm by the Government of Belgium for his service for the Allied cause. Shortly before retiring from the Navy on July 1, 1948, Admiral Spruance received a letter of commendation from the secretary of the Navy.
  
  In addition to those mentioned above, Admiral Spruance received the Victory Medal, Overseas Clasp (World War I); American Defense Service Medal, Fleet Clasp; Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal; World War II Victory Medal; and the Navy Occupation Service Medal, Asia Clasp. Besides the Belgian decorations, he had the Gold Cross of the Chevalier of the Order of the Savior from the Government of Greece, and the Honorary Companion of the Order of the Bath from Great Britain.
  
  The Navy honored Spruance by giving his name to a new class of 30 destroyers, the first of which, USS Spruance, was launched in 1973. An academic building at the Naval War College was also named for him.

Views

Spruance had proven himself to be an effective leader at the highest level. His leadership style could best be described as 'hands-off' because he would let his people do their thing and his subordinates appreciated this.

Admiral Spruance’s influence resonated throughout Naval Aviation doctrine. He became opposed to horizontal bombing and torpedo bombing because of the ineffectiveness and danger to aircraft. As a result dive-bombing at low level became the preferred method of attacking ships until the event of guided ordnance after the war.

Quotations: "A man's judgment is best when he can forget himself and any reputation he may have acquired and can concentrate wholly on making the right decisions."

Personality

Admiral Chester W. Nimitz called him a fine man, a sterling character, and a great leader, and said, nothing you can say about him would be praise enough. Admiral William L. Calhoun saw him as a cold-blooded fighting fool. Historian Samuel Eliot Morison believed he was one of the greatest fighting and thinking admirals in American naval history.

Yet because of his modest, retiring nature, Spruance was never a popular hero in the manner of Admirals Nimitz, William F. Halsey and Marc A. Mitscher. He disliked personal publicity and had a reputation for freezing reporters who invaded his privacy.

Spruance was fond of symphonic music, and his tastes were generally simple. He enjoyed hot chocolate and would make it for himself every morning. Besides his family, he loved the companionship of his pet schnauzer, Peter. Spruance spent most of his retirement days wearing old khakis and work shoes and working in his garden and greenhouse.

Physical Characteristics: Fit and spare in his 70s, Spruance was an active man who thought nothing of walking eight or 10 miles a day. He never smoked and drank little.

Interests

• gardening

• Music & Bands

  symphonic music

Connections

On December 30, 1914, Spruance married Margaret Vance Dean, the daughter of an Indianapolis businessman. His only son, Navy Captain Edward D. Spruance, who served for 30 years, was killed in a car accident in Marin County, California, in May 1969.

Father:

Alexander Spruance

Mother:

Annie Hiss Spruance

Spouse:

Margaret Vance Dean Spruance

(September 13, 1888, Indianapolis, Indiana, United States – November 2, 1985, Monterey County, California, United States)

Son:

Edward D. Spruance

(October 24, 1915, Norfolk, Virginia, United States – May 30, 1969, Marin County, California, United States)

Capt. Edward D. Spruance was a submariner in WWII commanding USS LIONFISH. He later was skipper of a captured Japanese "I" boat after the occupation of Japan.

Edward was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry while serving as approach officer aboard the submarine USS Tambor during WWII.

Friend:

William Frederick Halsey Jr.

(October 30, 1882 – August 16, 1959)

William Frederick Halsey Jr., known as Bill Halsey or "Bull" Halsey, was a Fleet Admiral in the United States Navy during World War II. He is one of four individuals to have attained the rank of fleet admiral of the United States Navy, the others being Ernest King, William Leahy, and Chester W. Nimitz.

Friend:

Richmond K. Turner

May 27, 1885 – February 12, 1961)

Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner commonly known as Admiral Kelly Turner, served in the United States Navy during World War II, and is best known for commanding the Amphibious Force during the campaign across the Pacific.

colleague:

Chester William Nimitz, Sr.

(February 24, 1885 – February 20, 1966)

Chester William Nimitz, Sr. was a fleet admiral of the United States Navy. He played a major role in the naval history of World War II as Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet and Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas, commanding Allied air, land, and sea forces during World War II.

References

• Admiral Raymond A. Spruance: Lessons In Adaptation From The Pacific This paper analyzes how Admiral Raymond A. Spruance prepared for the challenge of conducting amphibious assaults in the Central Pacific during World War II. Further, the paper uses Admiral Spruance’s development as an operational thinker as a case study for today’s leaders to prepare for the challenge of adapting to future operational environments.
  2015
• The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance Thomas Buell has succeeded in evoking the nature of the man as well as recording the achievements of the admiral in this brilliant biography, which won the Alfred Thayer Mahan Award for Literary Achievement the year of its publication.
  1974
• Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, USN The author, Vice Admiral E. P. Forrestel, an important member of Spruance’s Staff, was in an ideal position to observe and report on the thought processes of this great and successful naval officer.
  1966
• Fighting Admirals of WWII This book by David Wragg examines in detail the key naval commanders of both sides including five British (Pound, Cunningham, Ramsay, Horton, Somerville) and five US admirals (King, Nimitz, Spruance, Halsey, Fletcher), three German (Raeder, Doenitz, Lutjens) three Japanese (Yamamato, Nagumo, Koga) and two French (Darlan, de la Borde).
  2009