I’ve written quite a bit about Henry Walker Jr. and Sr. in the last year or two. I recently came by another story I thought my readers would enjoy, this one with Third Fleet Commander Adm. William "Bull" Halsey.
Henry Walker Jr. served on the USS Missouri, which was the flagship for Halsey during World War II.
Walker was a communications officer for the Missouri and was there the day the Japanese sent a message to the U.S. that they would surrender, he said in a University of Hawaii oral-history interview.
Walker says the Missouri had about a hundred communication officers aboard. "Six of us decrypted the most sensitive communications, the Japanese code called Ultra. These were taken by one of us to Adm. Halsey first, or to his chief of staff.
"We were always at his elbow with something for him to sign, something that he had to look at.
"It got so that I saw a lot of Halsey, morning, noon and night. He called me Henry. He was a brilliant man in his own way and in his own time. The nickname ‘Bull’ said it all."
On Aug. 10, 1945, after the second atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki, the Japanese sent an uncoded message in English — "We will accept unconditional surrender."
"This message, of course, electrified the Navy," Walker continues. "I was off watch, in my bunk. Suddenly I was awakened by one of Adm. Halsey’s Marine orderlies."
"‘Mr. Walker, Mr. Walker. Will you report to cabin 0316 on the double?’
"I said OK, got my shoes and my hat and stumbled up to this empty cabin on the forward part of the ship. There were already the other three communications watch officers who were not on duty. There were two, of course, on duty and four of us who were not.
"We walked into this room and Adm. Halsey’s Marine master sergeant walked in. He closed the door. We knew nothing of the plain-language message."
"Gentlemen," he said. "The admiral’s directed me to tell you that the Americans have just received a plain-language message from the Japanese indicating unconditional surrender.
"We said, ‘Oh, my God, isn’t that wonderful.’ We shook hands with each other."
The master sergeant said, "The admiral has something else for you."
"He handed us this paper bag. In it was a quart of Old Grand Dad whiskey, a box of ice, four cigars and four cups. ‘This is with the admiral’s compliments,’" the master sergeant concluded.
"We sat in the cabin and drank all the Old Grand Dad whiskey, got ourselves mightily loaded, and lit up the four cigars. In the bag, the admiral had left us a note."
"I and the country owe you and the people who work for you a tremendous debt. This is just my way of saying, ‘Thank you.’"
"Can you imagine?" Walker said. "I’ve always thought of that as a cute little vignette of my naval career."
Walker returned to civilian life and later became president of Amfac, which, under his leadership, grew to be Hawaii’s largest company. He was part of the group that brought the USS Missouri back to Hawaii in 1998.
Adm. William Halsey retired from active duty in March 1947. In his biography he gave credit to the instruments and machines that won us the war in the Pacific. He rated them in this order: submarines first, radar second, planes third, bulldozers fourth.
When asked about his contribution to the war effort, he said, "There are no great men, just great challenges which ordinary men, out of necessity, are forced by circumstances to meet."
And if you were wondering, the Paul McCartney song "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" is about him. The line "hands across the water, heads across the sky" refers to American aid programs during World War II.
One other interesting thing about Adm. Halsey: He had served on an earlier USS Missouri when he was fresh out of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1904.
On Nov. 30, 2012, I wrote about President Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet, which came to Hawaii in 1908. The USS Missouri was one of 16 battleships on a 42,000-mile, 14-month trip to project American military might around the globe.
Bob Sigall can be reached at sigall@yahoo.com. His fourth “The Companies We Keep” book, featuring many articles from this column, will be arriving in time for the holidays.
