The papers of William F. Halsey (1882-1959) date from 1907 to 1959, but are most numerous for the years 1943-1959. Included are letters received and carbons of letters sent, memoranda, drafts of speeches and articles, naval orders, newspaper clippings, books, pamphlets, reports, war diaries, campaign narratives, logs, journals, and souvenirs. Although the papers cover important aspects of Halsey's naval record in the Pacific, they chiefly relate to his social and business interests after World War II. The collection is organized into ten series: Orders and Official Papers, General Correspondence, Special Correspondence, Business and Social Correspondence, Routine Requests and Personal Appearance File, Military File, Subject File, Speeches and Writings, Miscellany, and Oversize.

Halsey's naval career, from his graduation at the United States Naval Academy in 1904 until he became associated with carrier command during the 1930s, can be traced through examination of his naval orders and official papers. The General Correspondence and Special Correspondence files, which contain more personal than official letters, focus on his career after graduation from the Pensacola Naval Air Station in 1935. The papers for the World War II period reflect Halsey's intense feeling against the Japanese people, his tireless efforts to fulfill his mission, and his theories of command structure.

The only letter in the General Correspondence predating Halsey's rise as a tactical carrier commander in the 1930s is a letter he wrote in 1910 expressing a desire to leave the navy. In the General Correspondence series for the period 1934-1939 are letters reflecting Halsey's private life as well as his naval career, including letters recommending transfers of officers, change of command, and carrier organization. Modern warfare, according to memoranda and reports from naval officers approved and passed on by Halsey to Admiral F. J. Horne in 1936, supported a decentralization of command structure regarding carrier division forces. Other topics of interest include the problems involved in the commissioning of an aircraft carrier and the tactical merits of combining marine corps carrier planes into a wing unit rather than separate groups, as then presently constituted.

Researchers interested in Halsey's wartime South Pacific area service are directed to the General Correspondence and Special Correspondence series, the Military File, which focuses predominantly upon events related to the Third Fleet, Halsey's command from 1944 to 1945, and the Miscellany.

The routine side of a naval officer's career during the war is portrayed in the General Correspondence, although more serious military matters, such as the Japanese occupation of the Caroline and Solomon Islands, are mentioned. As commander in the South Pacific, Halsey's military responsibilities are especially reflected in the Special Correspondence files of Chester W. Nimitz, Charles Frederick Berthod Price, A. A. Vandegrift, and William J. Donovan, which review the tactical aspects of island fighting, reasons for replacement by Halsey of key military personnel, matters of political consideration in military decisions, discussions of tactical carrier maneuvers under battle conditions, and psychological warfare. Correspondence with Peter Fraser, prime minister of New Zealand, and Sir Philip Mitchell, governor general of the Fiji Islands, testifies to Halsey's handling of administrative as well as military problems.

Other material in the Special Correspondence includes letters of Mark L. Bristol, commander of Carrier Division One, and John H. Towers, chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics, Department of the Navy, in the summer of 1940, discussing the status of the United States aircraft industry, the amortization of plants producing war materials, contract prices, and congressional appropriation factors. Other significant correspondence includes letters of Halsey to Admiral Harry E. Yarnell in 1943, in which he expresses his distaste for a separate air force and a single defense department to control all military branches; and a fervent letter from Henry Cabot Lodge (1902-1985) in 1944 revealing his personal aspirations for continued war service.

Perhaps the most significant letters in the Special Correspondence are the frank communications with Chester Nimitz, who as commander in chief in the Pacific was Halsey's immediate superior. The more than eighty letters, beginning in 1941, include occasional rebukes by Nimitz when Halsey exceeded his authority and discuss such diverse matters as strained press relations, the limiting of official visitors in the war zone, the methods devised to rebuild morale after disastrous setbacks, island administration, and the issue of neutralizing the Japanese stronghold in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea.

General and Special Correspondence after the end of hostilities documents Halsey's role as a retired naval officer and private citizen. Military commanders wrote seeking confirmation for details to include in battle histories or requesting Halsey to write a foreword for such works. Halsey's advice on postwar military matters, such as command structure, the organization of a defense department, United States relations with Japan, and the role of the military in peacetime, was also frequently sought. These letters also reflect growing concern with the nation's policy toward the newly established Communist government on the Chinese mainland.

Early in the postwar years Halsey wrote his autobiography, choosing as his assistant editor a naval officer and writer, J. Bryan. Correspondence concerning this work is located in the Special Correspondence files as are other postwar letters reflecting Halsey's continued concern with his military campaigns, his personal friendships, and the opportunity offered to him to lobby for South Korean interests, an opportunity not seriously considered.

After the war, Halsey served on the board of directors of many companies, some of which are represented in the Business and Social Correspondence. In this series are letters stipulating the time, place, and agenda of board meetings, social accommodations associated with company directorships, and requests for memberships in societies and clubs. The Subject File is a useful corollary for this series since it contains reports and other business statements.

Testifying to Halsey's popularity are the numerous requests he received for autographs, assistance in personal undertakings, photographs, and speeches, together with laudatory remarks concerning his published autobiography.

Aspects of Halsey's leadership in the South Pacific, his command of the Third Fleet, and his operational tactics during the Battle for Leyte Gulf are present in the Military File. Relating to his role as commander in the South Pacific is a campaign narrative, written nearly three months after leaving this command. The narrative, based on action reports, contains comments on command relationships and strategic implications of various ground, air, amphibious, and sea operations. Complementing this report are printed campaign service narratives in the Miscellany file.

The predominant feature of the Military File, however, concerns the widely publicized Battle for Leyte Gulf, a controversial naval engagement fought in the Surigaro Strait, and off the Island of Samar in the Philippines, October 24-26, 1944. The salient point voiced by Halsey's critics concentrates upon his critical decision to converge on a decoy Japanese carrier force to the north of Mindanao with his carrier fleet, thereby leaving General Douglas MacArthur's troops and support ships vulnerable to attack from two Japanese attack groups. Critical turning points in the battle are discussed in the Special Correspondence series, especially in the files of Robert Bostwick Carney, Halsey's chief of staff and articulate spokesman, and Samuel Eliot Morison, naval historian and critic of Halsey's tactical executions. Supplementing this exchange of letters are logs, communication and operation reports, war diaries of the Third Fleet, and Halsey's commentaries on the chapter regarding Leyte Gulf in E. B. Potter's naval history The United States and World Sea Power (Englewood Cliffs [N.J.] Prentice-Hall, 1955.) Also significant are Halsey's 1952 article in the Speech and Writings file entitled “The Battle for Leyte Gulf,” clippings in the Oversize that reflect this naval engagement, and letters in the General Correspondence series for the period 1947-1949 regarding a series of articles he wrote on his Pacific command.

Among those subjects documented in the Speech and Writings are Halsey's view on unity of command, the relationship between naval strategy, tactics, and command (his thesis for the Naval War College), and universal military training as a necessary instrument of national defense. There are no drafts in the collection of his autobiography.

Like many public figures, Halsey received his share of crank mail, concentrated heavily in the mid-1940s. Many of these letters contain references to new weapons which would speedily end the war. These, together with letters expressing sympathy on the death of his mother, Anna Masters Brewster Halsey, posthumous letters to Halsey's family, printed matter, and souvenirs, are included in the Miscellany. Those sending sympathy messages upon Halsey's death include Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyman Lemnitzer, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jacob K. Javits, Grayson Kirk, Richard M. Nixon, and Thomas White.

Prominent figures in the Special Correspondence other than those previously mentioned include Tom Clark, Arthur B. Cook, James Forrestal, Jesse Jones, Estes Kefauver, Ernest Joseph King, Julius Klein, Frank Knox, Douglas MacArthur, George C. Marshall, Sir Bernard Rawlings, Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George A. Smathers, Harold R. Stark, Edward R. Stettinius, Herbert Bayard Swope, Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, and Earl Warren.