Sea of Thunder; Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign
page 535
Some of the troops-the fliers and the sailors aboard the carriers-were beginning to ridicule Halsey. Admiral Jocko Clark, (The USS Yorktown's first skipper and later) task group commander aboard the USS Yorktown, and his staff wrote a parody screenplay of a dialogue between a publicity-hound Halsey, bellowing about his plans to "rub out these yeller-bellied little monkey-men bastards," and his weary, exasperated boss Chester Nimitz. Yorktown poets also wrote a long epic, "Ode to the Big Wind," which included verses such as these:
Bull his name and bull his nature
Bull his talk will always be
But for me and many like me
He's a perfect SOB.

Typhoons never worry this guy
Thought they come from north or south
Typhoons, Bah, he has one every
Time he opens his mouth.

                              

 

Kennedy in the NavyKennedy [ John F. Kennedy - then (1943) a junior officer in the US Navy] ready to disembark after more than a month at sea, was standing at the rail off Tulagi, reflecting on a large billboard that Admiral Halsey had ordered to be erected on the commanding hillside. The message fairly screamed at Kennedy and other newcomers -

"KILL JAPS! KILL JAPS! KILL MORE JAPS!
You will help to kill the yellow bastards
if you do your job well "

[From "PT 109 - The Wartime Adventures of President John F. Kennedy" by Robert J. Donovan]

 




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