Faith of My Fathers Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Preface

  Acknowledgments

  I

  CHAPTER 1 In War and Victory

  CHAPTER 2 Slew

  CHAPTER 3 Gallant Command

  CHAPTER 4 An Exclusive Tradition

  CHAPTER 5 Small Man with the Big Heart

  CHAPTER 6 Mr. Seapower

  CHAPTER 7 The Gunnel

  CHAPTER 8 Four Stars

  II

  CHAPTER 9 Worst Rat

  CHAPTER 10 Plebe

  CHAPTER 11 Low Grease

  CHAPTER 12 Fifth from the Bottom

  CHAPTER 13 Navy Flyer

  III

  CHAPTER 14 The Forrestal Fire

  CHAPTER 15 Killed

  CHAPTER 16 Prisoner of War

  CHAPTER 17 Solitary

  CHAPTER 18 The Plantation

  CHAPTER 19 The Fourth of July

  CHAPTER 20 Lanterns of Faith

  CHAPTER 21 Commander in Chief

  CHAPTER 22 The Washrag

  CHAPTER 23 Hanoi Hilton

  CHAPTER 24 Camp Unity

  CHAPTER 25 Skid Row

  CHAPTER 26 Pledge of Allegiance

  CHAPTER 27 Release

  CHAPTER 28 Free Men

  About the Authors

  Copyright

  For Doug, Andy, Sidney,

  Meghan, Jack, Jimmy, and Bridget

  PREFACE

  A survivor of Auschwitz, Viktor Frankl wrote movingly of how man controls his own destiny when captive to a great evil. “Everything can be taken from man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s own attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

  I have spent much of my life choosing my own attitude, often carelessly, often for no better reason than to indulge a conceit. In those instances, my acts of self-determination were mistakes, some of which did no lasting harm, and serve now only to embarrass, and occasionally amuse, the old man who recalls them. Others I deeply regret.

  At other times, I chose my own way with good cause and to good effect. I did not do so to apologize for my mistakes. My contrition is a separate matter. When I chose well I did so to keep a balance in my life—a balance between pride and regret, between liberty and honor.

  My grandfather was a naval aviator, my father a submariner. They were my first heroes, and earning their respect has been the most lasting ambition of my life. They have been dead many years now, yet I still aspire to live my life according to the terms of their approval. They were not men of spotless virtue, but they were honest, brave, and loyal all their lives.

  For two centuries, the men of my family were raised to go to war as officers in America’s armed services. It is a family history that, as a boy, often intimidated me, and, for a time, I struggled halfheartedly against its expectations. But when my own time at war arrived, I realized how fortunate I was to have been raised in such a family.

  From both my parents, I learned to persevere. But my mother’s extraordinary resilience made her the stronger of the two. I acquired some of her resilience and her felicity, and that inheritance made an enormous difference in my life. Our family lived on the move, rooted not in a location, but in the culture of the Navy. I learned from my mother not just to take the constant disruptions in stride, but to welcome them as elements of an interesting life.

  The United States Naval Academy, an institution I both resented and admired, tried to bend my resilience to a cause greater than self-interest. I resisted its exertions, fearing its effect on my individuality. But as a prisoner of war, I learned that a shared purpose did not claim my identity. On the contrary, it enlarged my sense of myself. I have the example of many brave men to thank for that discovery, all of them proud of their singularity, but faithful to the same cause.

  First made a migrant by the demands of my father’s career, in time I became self-moving, a rover by choice. In such a life, some fine things are left behind, and missed. But bad times are left behind as well. You move on, remembering the good, while the bad grows obscure in the distance.

  I left war behind me, and never let the worst of it encumber my progress.

  This book recounts some of my experiences, and commemorates the people who most influenced my choices. What balance I have achieved is a gift from them.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I could not have written this book without the encouragement and assistance of many people to whom I am greatly indebted. My mother, a natural storyteller if ever there was one, reminded me of a great many family stories I had either forgotten or had never heard before. She was quite generous with her time despite her initial suspicion that I was “just trying to show off.” My brother, Joe McCain, keeper of family papers and legends, was an invaluable help in organizing and fact checking.

  My father’s dear friend Rear Admiral Joe Vasey (ret.), who time and again interrupted his busy schedule to answer at length my many queries, gave me the best sense of my father as a submarine skipper and a senior commander. Moreover, he directed me to a wonderful website, hometown.aol.com/jmlavelle2, the work of Admiral Vasey and Jim Lavelle, which is a fountain of information about the experiences of the officers and crew of the USS Gunnel, one of the submarines my father commanded during World War II. I cannot praise or thank them enough for keeping the memory of their service alive and on-line.

  Many thanks are due as well to Admiral Eugene Ferrell, my old skipper, who reminded me of how proud I was, so many years ago, to have learned from a master ship handler how to be a sailor. Veteran war correspondent Dick O’Malley, a friend and keen observer of my grandfather during the war, told me many good tales about the old man in his last days at sea.

  My old friend and comrade Orson Swindle reviewed the manuscript and kindly marked for excision anything that smacked of self-aggrandizement. Keeping me honest is a role he has often played in my life and will, I hope, continue to play for a good while longer. My Academy roommate Frank Gamboa resurrected a few stories from our misspent youth that I had managed to bury years ago. Lorne Craner, son of my dear friend Bob Craner, shared many of his father’s memories of our time in prison, and was a great help in sorting out times and places that I had gotten thoroughly confused.

  Dr. Paul Stillwell, director of the Oral History Project at the Naval Institute, kindly allowed me to read the interviews of my father and many of my father’s and grandfather’s contemporaries, a wonderful resource for anyone interested in learning about the men who made the modern U.S. Navy. I am grateful for the assistance of Chris Paul, who spent a part of his vacation sorting through volumes of my father’s papers. Thanks also to Joe Donoghue for successfully tracking down information and photographs that had eluded me.

  Three others deserve special recognition and gratitude. Academy graduate, Vietnam veteran, and gifted reporter Bob Timberg, who often gives me the unsettling feeling that he knows more about me than I do, was a great source of encouragement and guidance. Just as important, Bob suggested that I meet with his agent, and now mine, Philippa (Flip) Brophy, who succeeded where others had failed by convincing me that Mark Salter and I could write a good story. She was a patient, steady influence throughout the drafting of the manuscript, as was my editor, Jonathan Karp. Although Jon is the only editor I have ever worked with, I cannot imagine how anyone could have done a better job. He and Flip kept us on track and calm, a tough assignment when working with a couple of amateur writers.

  Finally, both Mark and I would like to thank our wives, Cindy McCain and Diane Salter, and our children for tolerating yet another demand on our time that kept us from our more important, and better loved responsibilities. Any merit in this book is due in large part to the help of the kind
souls named above.

  John McCain

  Phoenix, Arizona

  I

  Faith of our fathers, living still,

  In spite of dungeon, fire and sword;

  O how our hearts beat high with joy

  Whenever we hear that glorious word!

  Faith of our fathers, holy faith!

  We will be true to thee till death.

  —Frederick William Faber,

  “Faith of Our Fathers”

  CHAPTER 1

  In War and Victory

  I have a picture I prize of my grandfather and father, John Sidney McCain Senior and Junior, taken on the bridge of a submarine tender, the USS Proteus, in Tokyo Bay a few hours after the Second World War had ended. They had just finished meeting privately in one of the ship’s small staterooms and were about to depart for separate destinations. They would never see each other again.

  Despite the weariness that lined their faces, you can see they were relieved to be in each other’s company again. My grandfather loved his children. And my father admired my grandfather above all others. My mother, to whom my father was devoted, had once asked him if he loved his father more than he loved her. He replied simply, “Yes, I do.”

  On the day of their reunion, my father, a thirty-four-year-old submarine commander, and his crew had just brought a surrendered Japanese submarine into Tokyo Bay. My grandfather, whom Admiral Halsey once referred to as “not much more than my right arm,” had just relinquished command of Halsey’s renowned fast carrier task force, and had attended the signing of the surrender aboard the USS Missouri that morning. He can be seen in a famous photograph of the occasion standing with his head bowed in the first rank of officers observing the ceremony.

  My grandfather had not wanted to attend, and had requested permission to leave for home immediately upon learning of Japan’s intention to capitulate.

  “I don’t give a damn about seeing the surrender,” my grandfather told Halsey. “I want to get the hell out of here.” To which Halsey replied, “Maybe you do, but you’re not going. You were commanding this task force when the war ended, and I’m making sure that history gets it straight.” In his memoir, Halsey described my grandfather “cursing and sputtering” as he returned to his flagship.

  To most observers, my grandfather had been as elated to hear of Japan’s decision to surrender as had the next man. Upon hearing the announcement, he ordered the doctor on his flagship to break out the medicinal brandy and passed cups around to all takers. He was a jocular man, and his humor could at times be wicked. He told a friend, as they prepared for the surrender ceremony, “If you see MacArthur’s hands shaking as he reads the surrender documents it won’t be emotion. It will be from too many of those mestiza girls in the Philippines.”

  In the days immediately following the announcement that Emperor Hirohito had agreed to surrender, a few of the emperor’s pilots had either not received or not believed the message. Occasionally, a few Japanese planes would mount attacks on the ships of my grandfather’s task force. He directed his fighter pilots to shoot down any approaching enemy planes. “But do it in a friendly sort of way,” he added.

  Some of his closest aides sensed that there was something wrong with the old man. His operations officer, Commander John Thach, a very talented officer whom my grandfather relied on to an extraordinary extent, was concerned about his health. Thach went to my grandfather’s cabin and asked him if he was ill. In an account of the exchange he gave many years later, Thach recalled my grandfather’s answer: “Well, this surrender has come as kind of a shock to all of us. I feel lost. I don’t know what to do. I know how to fight, but now I don’t know whether I know how to relax or not. I’m in an awful letdown.”

  Once on board the Missouri, however, he was entirely at ease. Rushing about the deck of the battleship, hailing his friends and reveling in the moment, he was the most animated figure at the ceremony. He announced to Admiral Nimitz, Commander in Chief, Pacific, that he had invented three new cocktails, the July, the Gill, and the Zeke, each one named for a type of Japanese plane his task force had fought during the war’s last hard months. “Each time you drink one you can say ‘Splash one July’ or ‘Splash one Zeke,’” he explained.

  After the surrender, Halsey reports, my grandfather was grateful for having been ordered to join the others on the Missouri. “Thank God you made me stay, Bill. You had better sense than I did.”

  Immediately after father and son parted company that day, my grandfather left for his home in Coronado, California. Before he left, he issued his last dispatch to the men under his command.

  I am glad and proud to have fought through my last year of active service with the renowned fast carriers. War and victory have forged a lasting bond among us. If you are as fortunate in peace as you have been victorious in war, I am now talking to 110,000 prospective millionaires. Goodbye, good luck, and may God be with you.

  McCain

  He arrived home four days later. My grandmother, Katherine Vaulx McCain, arranged for a homecoming party the next day attended by neighbors and the families of Navy friends who had yet to return from the war. Standing in his crowded living room, my grandfather was pressed for details of the surrender ceremony, and some of the wives present whose husbands were POWs begged him for information about when they could expect their husbands’ return. He responded to their inquiries courteously, seemingly content, as always, to be the center of attention.

  Some of the guests remembered having observed that my grandfather seemed something less than his normally ebullient self; a little tired from his journey, they had thought, and worn out from the rigors of the war.

  In the middle of the celebration my grandfather turned to my grandmother, announced that he felt ill, and then collapsed. A physician attending the party knelt down to feel for the admiral’s pulse. Finding none, he looked up at my grandmother and said, “Kate, he’s dead.”

  He was sixty-one years old. He had fought his war and died. His Navy physician attributed his fatal heart attack to “complete fatigue resulting from the strain of the last months of combat.” Halsey’s chief of staff, Admiral Robert Carney, believed he had suffered an earlier heart attack at sea and had managed to keep it hidden. According to Carney, the admiral “knew his number was up, but he wouldn’t lie down and die until he got home.”

  My grandfather had made his way to the Proteus to join my father immediately after the surrender ceremony. During a luncheon aboard ship hosted by the commander of U.S. submarines in the Pacific, father and son retreated to a small stateroom for a private conversation. In an interview my father gave thirty years later for the Naval Institute’s Oral History Project, he briefly described their last moment together. Nothing in my grandfather’s manner gave my father reason to worry about the old man’s health. “I knew him as well as anybody in the world, with the possible exception of my mother. He looked in fine health to me,” my father recalled. “And God knows his conversation was anything but indicative of a man who was sick. And two days later he died of a heart attack.”

  Little else is known about their last conversation. To the best of my knowledge, my father never talked about it to anyone except the Naval Institute interviewer. And the only detail he offered him, besides the description of my grandfather’s apparent well-being, was a remark my grandfather had made about how dying for your principles and country was a privilege.

  His obituary ran on the front page of the New York Times as it did in many major metropolitan papers. My grandmother received condolences from the nation’s most senior military and civilian commanders, including President Truman, General MacArthur, and Admirals Nimitz and Halsey. Navy Secretary Forrestal wrote her that “the entire Navy mourned.”

  In the Naval Academy yearbook for 1906, the year my grandfather graduated, the editors chose quotations from the classics to describe each member of the class. For my grandfather, the choice was prophetic, a line from Milton: “That power which erring men cal
l chance.”

  He was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery following a Washington funeral attended by Forrestal and the Chief of Naval Operations, Fleet Admiral Ernie King. Among his pallbearers was General Alexander Vandergrift, who had commanded the Marines on Guadalcanal, and Vice Admiral Aubrey Fitch, the Superintendent of the United States Naval Academy. He was awarded a fourth star posthumously.

  My father, who had left for the States immediately upon receiving word of the admiral’s death, arrived too late to pay his respects. My mother found him standing on the tarmac at San Diego when she returned from Washington. He was in the throes of deep grief, a grief that took years to subside. He told my mother he was relieved to have missed the funeral. “It would have killed me,” he explained.

  There was, however, an event near the end of my grandfather’s life that no one discussed. In none of the published accounts of my grandfather’s death nor in any of the many tributes offered by his contemporaries was mention made of the incident that had cost my grandfather his command just one day before the war’s end.

  Less than three months earlier, he had been ordered by Nimitz to resume command of Task Force 38, which at that time constituted almost the entire Third Fleet as it provided air support to the American invasion of Okinawa. One week after he resumed command, my grandfather and Halsey received the first reports from search planes of a tropical storm south of Okinawa that was fast becoming a typhoon.

  When the first reports of the June typhoon were received, the fleet meteorologists advised Halsey not to move the fleet. But Halsey, fearing that the typhoon would drive him westward and in range of Japanese planes based in China, ordered his task groups to sail southeast in an attempt to get around the storm. My grandfather was aboard his flagship, the Shangri-La. Puzzled by his instructions, he turned to his friend, a war correspondent for the Associated Press, Dick O’Malley, and said, “What the hell is Halsey doing, trying to intercept another typhoon?” His observation was a reference to Halsey’s actions during a typhoon that had struck the fleet in December 1944, sinking two destroyers. According to John Thach, my grandfather had recommended a heading for the fleet that would have avoided the earlier storm, as had Admiral Nimitz. But Halsey had insisted on another course, a course that tragically failed to take his ships out of harm’s way.