The moment the aircraft carrier Enterprise was refueled, Vice Adm. William F "Bull" Halsey Jr. gave the order for his battle force to move out.

It was 5 a.m. Dec. 9, 1941.

As Halsey's ships moved out of Pearl Harbor they had to plow through the oil that was still seeping out of sunken ships.

Perhaps not since the Confederates' high-water mark on the second day at Gettysburg had things looked so grim for the United States. The mission of Halsey's battle force was to hunt down Japanese submarines that intelligence reports said were en route to take up raiding positions along our nation's West Coast.

As the tight-jawed admiral headed to sea he also had a report that a Japanese aircraft carrier was already operating off the California shore. This report proved unfounded, but it illustrates the fear and uncertainty that clouded the early days of the United States' involvement in the war. Adding to the fears was the fact that about the only things between the West Coast and the Japanese were water and Halsey's fleet. It didn't take the admiral long to let the Japanese know that America's fighting spirit was still intact.

One day out from Pearl Harbor, planes from the Enterprise spotted a Japanese submarine and sank it. This was just the beginning.

On Feb. 1, 1942, Halsey launched bombing attacks against Japanese installations in the Marshall and Gilbert Islands. Although the attacks caused only minimal damage, they went a long way in bolstering the morale of the nation.

This was the first big naval offensive of the war, and Halsey was acclaimed by the press as the nation's first naval hero of World War II. For this action, the vice admiral received the Distinguished Service Medal.

When Halsey's ships returned to Pearl Harbor, he ordered all of them to fly their largest flags and pennants. Ship horns blared and sailors cheered their welcome when the battle force entered the harbor.

Better than a movie

That night Halsey's strolled out onto the Enterprise's hangar deck, where many of his men were watching a movie. When the sailors saw their commander, they rose and gave him a standing ovation.

The men called for a speech, but Halsey was so moved by the rousing demonstration of approval that all he could manage to say was that he was so proud of them that he could cry.

Halsey and his men were again instrumental in striking at the heart of the Japanese on April 18, 1942, when 16 B-25 bombers led by Lt. Col. James H Doolittle launched from the deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Hornet.

At 12:30 p.m., the bombers arrived over Tokyo and began dropping bombs. Although the material damage suffered wasn't extensive, the psychological damage was incalculable.

With skill, cunning and daring, Halsey had managed to maneuver his ships within 300 miles of the Japanese coast before launching the bombers. Doolittle and his brave flyers did the rest, and showed the enemy that even their capital was vulnerable to attack.

These initial raids were only the preamble to the savage hammering Halsey would eventually inflict on the enemy.

On Oct. 18, 1942, Halsey became commander of the South Pacific Area and South Pacific Force. Eight days later, Halsey defeated the Japanese at the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands.

In mid-November he inflicted severe damage on a huge Japanese armada during a three-day shoot-out in the waters off Guadalcanal. The victory wrenched control of the sea in the lower Solomon Islands from the Japanese. Following the battle Halsey was promoted to full admiral.

In June 1944, Halsey became commander of the 3rd Fleet and continued to reduce the Japanese strength in the pacific through brilliant air strikes. During the Battle of Leyte Gulf, from Oct. 23 to 25, 1944, his ships delivered a series of devastating blows against the Japanese navy. The Japanese never recovered.

During final operations against Japan in July and August of 1945, forces under Halsey pulverized the enemy. Between July 10 and Aug. 15, Halsey's command destroyed or damaged 2,804 enemy planes sank of damaged 148 Japanese combat ships and sank or damaged 1,598 merchant vessels.

During this period, the United States also delivered heavy blows against industrial targets and war industries on the Japanese mainland. The dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought an end to the war with Japan.

Halsey would later maintain that his life reached its climax at 9:25 a.m. Aug. 29, 1945. That was when the Japanese surrender ceremony concluded aboard the battleship Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay.

Flushed with the joy and pride of victory, Halsey was justifiably proud of his wartime accomplishments. In December 1945 the aging seadog was promoted to fleet admiral, but he knew his naval days were coming to an end.

On Feb. 14, 1947, Halsey, while still on active duty, was named by the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia to head up the school's fund drive. The admiral was visiting the school when the announcement was made.

"Just give me a chance to look around and get myself oriented again," Halsey said after emerging from and automobile in front of Madison Hall.

Nearly half a century had passed since he had been a UVa student during the 1899-1900 school year.

But no sooner had the words gotten out of his mouth than he was ushered across the street to the Rotunda to pose for photographs. After the photo op, he was ushered off to Alumni Hall.

Judge Armistead M. Dobie, one of Halsey's UVa classmates, mentioned that when they were students the site of Alumni Hall had been a frog pond.

"Yes, I probably fell in it," Halsey said. As the admiral continued his tour of the campus, he smiled often as he recalled his time here.

Halsey said he had been back to Charlottesville only once since his student days, but he and his wife, Frances, were looking forward very much to making their home here.

During the tour somebody asked Halsey about his nickname, "Bull." It probably came as a surprise to many to learn that the admiral hated the moniker.

"I got that name from some drunken newspaper correspondent who punched the letter 'u' instead of 'i' in writing Bill," Halsey explained.

On April 1, 1947, after more than 45 years in the Navy, Halsey retired. He and his wife moved into their home on Rugby Avenue, and the old salt set up his office in the Rotunda.

The new task before him, raising $6.5 million, would prove to be just about as difficult as running the Japanese out of the Pacific. Betty Miller was one of the admiral's secretaries when he first started the job.

"My desk was right outside the admiral's office," said Miller, who lives in Charlottesville." In the two or three months I worked there, I never did see him.

"He had his own door and I was too timid at that time to go in there and introduce myself. I didn't see him, but I often heard him whispering curses.

He was too much of a gentleman to swear around ladies, so he did it behind the closed door. I think he swore because he was just so damn bored with all that fund-raising stuff."

The job did bore Halsey to distraction. He was able to tough the assignment out until 1949, but his heart was never in it.

In 1949 when Halsey was offered the chairmanship of the board of the All-American Cable and Radio Corp., an affiliate of International Telephone and Telegraph Corp., he jumped at it. He later became a director of ITT and president of the International Telecommunications Laboratories.

After resigning from his position at UVa, Halsey moved to New York. Because of her poor health, his wife opted to move to California to be near their son, William F. Halsey III.

Although the admiral's titles were impressive, his real role was public relations. He was an ideal choice because he was revered by many and was very personable as well.

Although Halsey enjoyed the attention, he didn't make the mistake of letting the adulation go to his head.

During a reception in Halsey's honor in 1946, a woman reached out and touched the admiral's hand. She then exclaimed that she felt as though she had touched the hand of God.

When the woman was out of hearing range, Halsey turned to one of his officers and said, "Did you hear that idiot?"

Halsey never had any doubt that he was a mere mortal. As the decade of the 1950s moved along, his advancing age didn't let him forget it.

One of the last things Halsey did was help mount a valiant effort to save his old flagship, Enterprise, from the scrap heap. In 1957 he told the press that he was getting along in years but was trying to live to save the carrier.

He suffered a mild stroke in July 1957, ending his effort to save the ship. In August 1958 the battle for the Enterprise was lost. It was cut up and sold for scrap.

The following August, Halsey was vacationing at a country club on Fishers Island, N.Y. On Aug. 15, he walked along the beach and waded into the water he loved.

When Halsey failed to appear for breakfast the following morning, the club manager went to his room and found him dead of a heart attack.

When word of Halsey's death reached Charlottesville, UVa President Colgate W. Darden Jr. said, "The country is much poorer by reason of his death."

Halsey's body was flown to Washington. It lay in state in the National Cathedral's Bethlehem Chapel until the funeral on Aug. 20, 1959.

After the services, the white, flag-draped casket was placed on a caisson that was drawn by horses. On the way to the Arlington National Cemetery, people crowded both sides of the street to say their good-byes to the great naval commander.

Halsey was buried on top of a steep rise next to the graves of his parents. In the days, weeks and years following the admiral's death, many anecdotes about him were told.

One tale probably sums up the admiral's fighting spirit as well as any of them. The story is told that during the war, Halsey was on board the Enterprise somewhere in the Pacific. The admiral's ears perked up when he happened to hear a Japanese radio broadcast.

Speaking in English, the Japanese announcer was arrogantly asking, "Where is the American fleet?"

With a scowl on his face, Halsey turned to his aide and said, "Send them our latitude and longitude."