Admiral Halsey's Story

By: William F. Halsey, J. Bryan III

Narrated by: Jordan Walters

Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey earned a legendary reputation for daring and boldness as commander of the U.S. Third Fleet. Admiral Halsey’s Story is this admiral’s record of his actions through the course of his remarkable career in the US Navy.

The account begins with a brief overview of his years in school and early years with the navy, where he fought in the First World War and served in Mexico and Greece, as he rose through the ranks to become vice admiral just before the outbreak of the Second World War.

Halsey’s life was dramatically altered with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, as through the next four years, he rose from relative obscurity to become one of the most famous allied naval figures in the war.

The events of Halsey’s life through World War Two are split into three sections in the book and are covered in wonderful detail:

• Firstly, he uncovers the details of his command of a carrier task force in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor until May 1942.
• Next, the book discusses his life as Commander of the South Pacific Area and its forces which lasted until June 1944.
• And finally, the book gives an in-depth overview of the final year of the war when Halsey was commander of the U.S. Third Fleet.

During the war, Halsey had continually acted with bravery and speed and all of his most famous actions are covered through the book, such as how he directed the campaigns in the Solomons and led the attacks on the Carolines and New Britain.

William F. Halsey was an American admiral in the United States Navy during World War II. In 1943, he was made commander of the Third Fleet, the post he held through the rest of the war. He was promoted to fleet admiral in December 1945 and retired from active service in March 1947.

Admiral Halsey's Story was first published in 1947, and Halsey passed away in 1959. The book was written with Lieutenant Commander J. Bryan III, USNR, who during the war had served a lieutenant commander assigned to naval air combat intelligence in the Pacific. In civilian life, he was a journalist and writer who was born into the influential Bryan family of newspaper publishers and industrialists. He passed away in 1993.

©2019 BN Publishing (P)2019 BN Publishing

Critic reviews

“The book is pure Halsey - the personal yarn of a seagoing, fighting admiral who was forthright, honest, often brilliant, sometimes rash, but who possessed above all else, a natural modesty that enhanced his uncommon valor.” (Naval War College Review)

“To learn what went on behind the wartime newspaper reports, her is an incomparable document. Admiral Halsey has written simply and modestly a book that will further enhance the Halsey legend.” (The Saturday Review)

“He knew far better than armchair historians do that the best defense is a good offense. That is the legacy of Bull Halsey.” (Warfare History Network)

Interesting Book ruined by a poor narrator

This is an interesting book written just post war by Admiral William F. Halsey and his ghost writer, the journalist and naval officer Joseph Bryan III. Published in 1947 its supposed to be an autobiographical look at Halsey from his birth to when he retired from active service post war. This is usually considered a primary source for most folks doing biographical research on his life and some of his actions or thinking during WW2. Even if he doesn't take to task others in any of the services, rather tells adventures with them and talks of other folks in nice terms; even if there might have been friction at the time. I remember reading this decades ago after discovering an old copy in a used book store and when I found it here, I thought it would be a fun listen while commuting to and from work.

However, the narrator for this book...OMG....as others have reported it feels like the author was totally unprepared for this book. I can sort of excuse the inability to pronounce some of the foreign locales like Manila, Yokohama, Singapore, and other various islands mentioned in passing as part of the war. However, I can't excuse the horrible application of "Which is witch" by the narrator. I am unsure if there is a small accent but when he reads about Halsey going through something as in traveling from a point to point; instead it sounds like Halsey was thorough in a traveling from point to point. Other times the author seems to discuss taking a ship into a shipyard for purposes of converting a ship from one time to another; instead the narrator read the sentence as if the author took a ship to a shipyard to have a talking with, since it sounds like conversation. There are even straight phonetically reading of words in the text that I had to rewind multiple times to understand such as a pronouncing a word such as austerity and it sounded nothing like it.

Then lets roll into the nautical terms that the narrator butchers hard. From things like Boatswains Mates sounding like Boats Wains or the front of a ship sounding like a ribbon someone can tie in your hair vs taking a bow at the end of a performance. It just goes on and on like that. I mean even if we accept that this was recorded prior to to having some early AI like readers on computers read text to you to know how to pronounce words. There is just that some of these words like bow are common place enough with the context clues to know you have mispronounced it.

Last bit that makes this a hard listen is that it really feels like the narrator is seeing this material for the first time and is recording it as if they are standing in front of the class having to give a presentation or read a page for the class. There is no steady rhythm like some of the more experienced narrators, this narrator speeds up and slows down at various times which without context again makes no sense. Going slow during dramatic parts while going fast through boring but detail important parts. There is background noise from the narrator flipping pages of the actual book. Then there is the narrator himself offering up unusual pauses, stumbles and re-reads of a sentence or paragraph. Which seems to say the narrator was trying to read this all in one setting and didn't even have some basic form of editing software where you could splice in better readings as part of what was submitted for publication. Finally, with this narrator; with the tempo off in reading, he seems to run out of breath fast. Again it feels like he is either reading this all in one sitting; doesn't know how to read in a professional setting or even in a personal setting (something that used to be taught at the most basic levels of education). Which also makes understanding the text and the intent of the author challenging if not outright difficult.

If anything this book deserves a new read by a new narrator and this version needs to be pulled from Audible's catalog until that is done.

Great Biography Read by an Amateur

Like him or hate him, William Halsey was a great man. His biography deserves to be read with a bit of gravitas...and not some unprepared college C- student. At the very least the child should have learned how to pronounce nautical terms, parts of a vessel,
and the names of foreign places where good men and women died. In stead we get an “almost good enough” attempt by an amateur, inept, archetypical millennial.

Great Story, Great man...

This book is good written well but the reader is horrible. Mis-pronounces words hesitates as he reads, lots of um's . Just sounds amateurish.

Maybe the worst narration I’ve ever heard

I normally don’t criticize a narrator of a book. They are good people trying to do a good job of reading a good book. This narrator did such a poor job I found it impossible to listen through a book of great interest to me twice. Mispronunciations, stumbles, hesitations...too numerous to name. I’m sure the narrator didn’t intend to hash up his performance, but I respectfully recommend he read through the book & carefully research the pronunciation of words he clearly did not recognize before recording his narration. Better luck next time. This is one book I will be reading with great interest to see instead of hear the story of a great but very controversial World War II American military leader.

Good Book Audio okay

I really liked the book but the person doing the audio struggled to read it.

Great Content, Terrible Narration

Admiral Halsey's story is an important one, too bad it is totally ruined by the worst narration I've ever heard on any Audible book. The narrator acts like he never saw the content before, stumbled continually and mispronounced more words than he got right.
Too bad such a wonderful story was ruined!

Hard to listen to

It sounds like they went with the first recording. There are several places where the narrator rereads sentence he misread and where he sounds out words as if he’s seeing them for the first time. If I didn’t need this book for class I wouldn’t have listened to the whole thing. The story is interesting but the recording is is punishing.

The narration is atrocious

The performance is full of mispronunciations and stumbles. The audio sounds like it was recorded in a closet. I’ve read the book and it is great, but the narration is so poor as to be distracting and I had to stop listening. I hope a professional narrator records this book and I will be first in line to buy the new audiobook.

who did you get to read this book a 1st grader?

I really wanted to know admiral Haesy story but I could had my 10 year old grand daughter do a better job. i would suggest having this reader scrapped and redone. at least find someone who can pronounce names & places correctly

Reader

I person reading this was completely awful. It was like he had never seen the material until he was in front of the mic. Irritating in the extreme.