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A Blankety Blank Drill
A Blankety Blank Drill
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- Sep, 20 , 24
Admiral Ernest King was one of the great naval officers of his generation, exceptional in his decision-making, work ethic, and technical know-how. Famously, he was confrontational and occasionally crude. A firsthand account from science fiction writer Robert Heinlein, who served under King on board USS Lexington, provides an entertaining insight into King’s personality.
During a training exercise, King ordered Lexington’s deck lights turned on to provide visibility for aircraft preparing to take off, for which King received a reprimand from exercise observers. Heinlein witnessed as King “exploded, using these censored words”:
deleted censored blank blank! I will not allow myself to be forced to have to write to the mother of some blank kid and explain to her how he got his censored head chopped off by a deleted prop of a blank plane he couldn’t see in the dark and was too inexperienced to know how to avoid! No, by blank, I will not! . . . I won’t have my men killed just for realism in a blank blank blankety drill!
Heinlein added that the crew “was proud of the Old Man that night, [in that] he showed his bravery and basic humanity—with his flag almost in sight.”
King’s Navy by David Kohnen is an epic 600-plus-page biography of Ernest King and a study of the rise of American sea power from 1897 to 1947. The book is on sale November 28.
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