Samuel Murray Robinson - World War II

World War II

Upon America's entry into World War II, Robinson was elevated to production chief for the entire Navy. As director of the newly created Office of Procurement and Material in the Navy Department, Robinson was in charge of all naval material procurement activities, including the construction of ships, aircraft, and shore bases; the manufacture of guns and ordnance; and the purchase of oil, food, clothing, and other supplies. He was promoted to vice admiral on January 31, 1942, the highest rank ever attained by an American staff officer up to that point.

In his new role, Robinson exercised unprecedented control over the Navy Department bureau system. For over eighty years, the various bureaus - Ordnance, Supplies and Accounts, Medicine and Surgery, etc. - had functioned more or less autonomously, and the decentralized bureau system had acquired a reputation for parochialism and inefficiency. Bureau chiefs reigned supreme within their own domains, reporting only to the secretary or undersecretary of the Navy, and jealously guarded their statutory prerogatives against repeated attempts to consolidate uniformed authority in the person of the chief of naval operations. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the two-ocean Navy, by now scheduled to arrive in 1944, suddenly was needed immediately. To maximize construction speed, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox created a new Office of Procurement and Material and placed Robinson at its head. The new office worked through the existing bureaus to coordinate all Navy procurement, giving Robinson supervisory authority over all the bureau chiefs, a change in Navy Department governance as sudden and sweeping as the simultaneous consolidation of line authority in the hands of the commander in chief of the United States Fleet, Admiral Ernest J. King.

As Navy production chief, Robinson formed one leg of a Navy high command triumvirate whose other members were King, as chief of naval operations and commander in chief of the United States Fleet; and Vice Admiral Frederick J. Horne, as vice chief of naval operations. Robinson delivered naval hardware and supplies to Horne, who combined Robinson's materiel with the manpower trained by the Bureau of Personnel and passed the battle-ready products to King, who deployed them. Robinson and his Army counterpart, Lieutenant General Brehon B. Somervell, reported directly to the chairman of the War Production Board, Donald M. Nelson, who delegated them responsibility for all military procurement in the United States.

Robinson was promoted to full admiral on August 27, 1945, twelve days after the victory over Japan, the first staff officer to achieve that rank in the history of the U.S. Navy. He retired from the Navy in 1946 to serve as administrator of the Webb Institute of Naval Architecture in Glen Cove, New York until 1952.