The way to victory is long.
The going will be hard.
We will do the best we can with what we've got.
We must have more planes and ships- at once.
Then it will be our turn to strike.
We will win through- in time.

King's first statement as Commander-in-Chief, United States fleet, sent on 24 December 1941. As quoted in History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Volume Three: The Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931-April 1942 (1948) by Samuel Eliot Morison, p. 255. Also quoted on the first page and on page 58 of The United States Navy in World War II (1966) by S.E. Smith (editor).