Fleet Admiral Halsey was attending a reception in 1946 when a woman broke through the crowd around him, grasped his hand, and cried, “I feel as if I were touching the hand of God!”
On the day that Pearl Harbor was attacked, William Frederick Halsey, Jr., was a vice admiral with the signal number 41. He had won the Navy Cross in World War I and also held the Mexican Service Medal and the Victory Medal with Destroyer Clasp. In addition, Greece had given him the Order of the Redeemer, and Chile, the Al Merito, Primera Classe. His vice admiral’s stripes and his long years of diversified service had made him well known in the Navy, but although he was listed in “Who’s Who,” as are all naval officers above captains, few civilians had heard his name.By the time of the reception, five years later, he had become not only the most famous man in the United States Navy but the most famous living naval man in the world. He had jumped from the obscure pages of the “Navy Register” to the front pages of the world’s newspapers, and from there into the pages of history.He had been promoted two grades, his signal number was 7, and his five decorations had increased to twenty-four...