His peculiar style of leadership was full of contradictions: simultaneously cold-blooded and tender-hearted, bombastic and coolly logical, overbearing and self-deprecating, sentimental and ridiculous. Whatever it was, it resonated powerfully. Sailor James J. Fahey of the Montpelier undoubtedly spoke for the fleet when he told his diary, in November 1943, “The men would do anything for him.”
