People ask how I got along with the other commanding officers. I have to be honest: less well than I should have. If one ship in a ten-ship group is doing conspicuously well, it’s hard to imagine the other nine feeling good about it. Yet I never stopped to consider those feelings, which, of course, included my own competitiveness. That was a mistake on my part. I certainly made life uncomfortable for the nine other commanding officers in my battle group. Their sailors would complain that Benfold was doing this or that, so why couldn’t they?
