No fighter ever won his fight by covering up- by merely fending off the other fellow's blows. The winner hits and keeps on hitting even though he has to take some stiff blows in order to be able to keep on hitting.

Excerpt from a late March 1942 memorandum King wrote to President Roosevelt, urging against adopting the policy of those most concerned with defending the continental United States. It is unknown if the memorandum was actually ever seen by the President. The entire memorandum is quoted by Thomas B. Buell, Master of Sea Power: A Biography of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King (1980), Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, hardcover, p. 193.