“It must be the key idea of all hands that we will make the best of what we have.”

— Ernest King

Excerpt from Atlantic Fleet Confidential Memorandum 2CM-41, sent on 24 March 1941. As quoted in History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Volume One: The Battle of the Atlantic, September 1939-May 1943 (1948) by Samuel Eliot Morison, p. 52

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Ernest King 49

United States Navy admiral, Chief of Naval Operations 1878–1956

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“It must be the key idea of all hands that we will make the best of what we have.”

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