Robert B Carney

Source: The Washington Times Page: B8
Obituary: Retired Navy Adm. Robert Bostwick Carney, 95, the first chief of naval operations under the Eisenhower administration and a top strategic naval planner during World War II, died of cardiac arrest June 25 at his home in Washington.

Adm. Carney, a native of Vallejo, Calif., graduated from the Naval Academy in 1916. He served aboard the destroyer Fanning and assisted in the sinking of a German U-boat and the capture of its crew during World War I.

He helped organize a surface-air convoy to escort Allied supply ships to Europe in 1941. During World War II, Adm. Carney was chief of staff to Adm. William F. "Bull" Halsey Jr. in the Pacific, planning and executing many major naval operations.

"We would figure out tactics to defeat the Japanese from day to day," said a longtime friend, retired Navy Capt. Gilven Slonim of Falls Church. "We saw how his mind was constantly at work probing what we could do to put an end to the war."

Adm. Carney received the Navy Cross for his role in planning U.S. operations in the battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, a battle in which 60 Japanese ships were sunk at a cost of seven U.S. vessels. He later headed the group that planned the invasion of Okinawa.

Among his postwar assignments, he served as commander in chief of NATO forces in Southern Europe. From 1953 to 1955, when he retired, he was chief of naval operations, responsible for holding down budgets following the Korean War.

After retiring, he served on several corporate boards. He was a member of the Naval Academy Advisory Board and a past president of the U.S. Naval Institute and the Naval Academy Alumni Association. Grace Craycroft Carney, his wife of 71 years, died last year. His son, retired Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Robert B. Carney Jr., died in 1983.

Adm. Carney is survived by a daughter, Betty Carney Taussig of Annapolis, four grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Services will be at 11 a.m. tomorrow at Fort Myer Chapel, with burial in Arlington National Cemetery. The family suggests that expressions of sympathy be in the form of contributions to the Naval Museum at the Washington Naval Yard.