232 Arthur Voiceover: This program is sponsored by the United States Naval Institute. (Theme music) Voiceover: The following is a production of the Pritzker Military Museum and Library. Bringing citizens and citizen soldiers together through the exploration of military history, topics, and current affairs, this is Pritzker Military Presents. Clarke: Welcome to Pritzker Military Presents featuring Admiral Stanley R. Arthur, former Vice Chief of Operations, US Navy Retired, for an exploration of his career in the US navy with interviewer Dr. Edward Marolda. I’m your host Ken Clarke, and this program is coming to you from the Pritzker Military Museum and Library in downtown Chicago, and it’s sponsored by the United States Naval Institute. This program and hundreds more are available on demand at PritzkerMilitary.org. Admiral Stanley Arthur is a distinguished and highly decorated naval officer who was commissioned in the US navy in 1957 and earned his wings as a naval aviator in 1958. He became one of the most highly decorated aviators of the Vietnam War. He completed 514 combat missions, a feat that earned him eleven separate distinguished flying crosses and over fifty separate air medal awards. In 1990 he took command of the United States Seventh Fleet and had oversight of the naval forces central command. In that capacity he led US and multi- national forces in Operation Desert Storm. (1:55-2:22 is a repeat of the previous phrases) He was appointed Vice Chief of Naval Operations, the second highest commissioned United States Navy by President George HW Bush with confirmation by the senate in 1992. Admiral Arthur’s previous assignments include commanding officer of attack squadron 164 onboard the aircraft carrier USS Hancock, the commanding officer of combat store ship USS San Jose, the commanding officer of aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea, and as commander of carrier group seven. His staff tours include assignments with the Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet in Hawaii, the rapid deployment task force, central command, and the bureau of naval personnel. He also served as deputy chief of naval operations for logistics. A highly decorated officer in his thirty-eight years of service, Admiral Arthur's awards include the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Navy Commendation Medal, and more. Admiral Arthur attended Miami University on a naval ROTC scholarship, graduating in 1957. He later earned a second bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from the US Naval Postgraduate School and received his master's degree in administration from George Washington University. He was inducted into the Naval Aviation Hall of Fame in 2008. Interviewing Admiral Arthur today is Dr. Edward Marolda. Dr. Marolda served for many years as US Navy senior historian at the Naval History and Heritage Command, and was their acting director of navy histories and the chief of the histories and archives division. He earned a master's in European diplomatic history and a Ph.D. in US history at George Washington University. He has authored numerous books on the history of the US Navy; recent works include Knowing the Enemy: Naval Intelligence in Southeast Asia, Naval Airwar: The Rolling Thunder Campaign, Ready Seapower: A History of the US Seventh Fleet, and he coauthored the award winning Shield and Sword: The US Navy and the Persian Gulf War. A US Army veteran of the Vietnam War, Dr. Marolda spearheaded the navy's oral histories initiatives and partnerships through the United States Naval Institute Oral History Program. Please join me in welcoming to the Pritzker Military Museum and Library Admiral Stanley R. Arthur and Dr. Edward Marolda. Gentlemen, thank you. (Applause) Marolda: Thank you, Ken. It's a pleasure to be here tonight and to discuss the distinguished career of Admiral Stanley R. Arthur. We spent some fifty hours, the admiral and I, at his home in Orlando, Florida covering his entire life, not only his navy career, but pre and post times as well. It was your--your time in the navy was certainly a time of great importance to the United States in our history; a time of the wars in Korea and Vietnam, various other crises. It was a period of the Cold War and our confrontation with the Soviet Union. And it was also a time of very great social change in the United States in our society, problems but solutions as well. The--one of the things that I, in talking with you and learning about your past and your glorious career, everyone I talked to in preparation for the interviews made it clear that they all respected your integrity, your personality, and your down-to-earth common sense. It’s a cliché, but I think it's appropriate in this occasion that you are a sailor's admiral. And we got that from everyone I talked to. And one of the attributes that you also have, of course very essential to a good leader is personal bravery, bravery in combat. And in that regard there's one episode that if you could talk a bit about, I think our audience would enjoy learning about it. During the Vietnam War there was an operation called Iron Hand, and that was to go after the enemy's radio and surface to missile air batteries. If you could talk about your experience in Iron Hand. Arthur: Well, the Iron Hand mission was a SAMs suppression mission. The SAMs had been new to us and the game and the early stages of the game when the SAMs appeared the first guys that had to face them didn’t really have a weapon that could counter. Basically they fired rockets or dropped widespread ammunition type bombs to try and get the SAM sites themselves, but we had no way of shutting down their radars. The Shrike missile came along, and so within the A4 community, the attack community, we had-- certain squadrons were designated to be primary mission Iron Hand. My early days, first two employments was with VA55, and we were an Iron Hand certified squadron. Later on when I commanded 164, laser guided bombs was our real ace in the hole, but Iron Hand was the secondary. What we did as an Iron Hand were planes on either side of the formation with the Shrike missile, our job was to--if the same radars came up we sped ahead, fired the missiles, and tried to get the radars down. Marolda: Can you describe the tactic that you employed to not be hit by the SAMs? Arthur: Well, if the SAMs had launched, the best thing to do was make sure you had them in visual range. If you could see them, you could outmaneuver them. If you couldn’t see them, they had the advantage. So as soon as you got a SAM warning the first thing you did was make sure your eyes were out of the cockpit and you picked up where the SAM was. And as long as you could keep it somehow close to the nose, wait for an appropriate time, which becomes the key to the game, make a hard break usually down away from the SAM, and although he could turn--he could pull more Gs than you could, he was much faster, so he still--we could still turn inside. And you could escape. If you pulled your nose up and slowed down, then the SAM had the advantage to you. So it was always trying to get the missile on the nose. Marolda: Well, we're fortunate that you survived that. Arthur: We did. Marolda: You obviously did. A number of your colleagues did not. It was a tough mission. Arthur: It was. Marolda: But again a demonstration of your personal bravery in combat. Stepping back to the early days when you were born on the 27th of September 1935 in San Diego, California. Arthur: Just a couple days ago. Marolda: (Chuckling) A few days back. If you could talk about your early experiences, your home life. It was during WWII, a very exciting time. And where you went and your education. Arthur: Well, my parents were both from a small town in southeastern Ohio, the town of Jackson in Jackson County. My mother was raised on a farm out in the county, and dad was raised in town. His dad was a grocer. Dad, when he graduated high school, went into the navy, enlisted in the navy, came to Great Lakes, and then was assigned to a four-stack destroyer out in San Diego. On one of his leaves back to Jackson County to see his parents he found Mom, and they ran away and got married, and came back to San Diego. And I was born, as you say, in '35 in the Balboa Naval Hospital there in San Diego. Our daughter Erin, many years later, also born Balboa Naval Hospital San Diego. So we're in San Diego, and when I’m five years old, 1941, not yet my birthday, and Dad's ship was out in Hawaii. Mom, my sister and I got on Mattson liner and sailed to Hawaii and had the ticker tape homecoming there at the port in Honolulu, had my fifth or sixth birthday there on Waikiki beach, and a few days after my birthday Dad's ship deployed through the Panama Canal and went to the Caribbean to-- Marolda: You spent most of the war years, though, in Ohio, in Philadelphia as well. Arthur: As soon as Dad's ship left Hawaii the navy forced Mom, my sister, and I to leave since we were no longer sponsored dependents on the island, or territory, of Hawaii.