THE IMPERTURBABLE ADMIRAL

WITH her engines grinding at a rowboat's pace and her crew peering anxiously at debris in the water, the U.S. destroyer Boyd slipped in toward Japanese-held Nauru Island on the morning of Dec. 8, 1943. A U.S. fighter pilot had been-- shot down within point-blank range of the island shore batteries, and the Boyd was bent on rescuing him. Suddenly, two 6-in. shells crashed into the forward .engine room, destroying half of the ship's power. Shellburst jets of water blossomed everywhere. The Boyd's skipper, Lieut. Commander Ulysses Simpson Grant Sharp Jr., unable to find the pilot, heeled the crippled destroyer about and began a nightmarish slow-motion escape through waters alive with explosions. "Knowing that the gunners would attempt to correct their fire after each miss," Sharp recalled later, "I decided to chase the fall of the shot." Whenever a shell blew up, he calmly veered toward the geyser. For six miles he ran that gauntlet, brought ship and crew to safety in the open sea, later got a Silver Star for his cool performance.

Pinpoint Precision. Coolness is still one of the man's most notable characteristics. Last week, as the Asian crisis bore down on him, Admiral Grant Sharp, now 58, well-decorated and as slender and hard as a torpedo (5 ft. 7 in., 147 Ibs.), described his activities and explained imperturbably: "These things are all thought out ahead of time. It is the culmination of a lot of planning, and the actual execution is fairly simple." True enough. But had he executed his orders with anything less than pinpoint precision, Sharp could well have triggered a disaster in the Far East. As Commander in Chief, Pacific (CINCPAC), he bosses a costly ($5,000,000 a day) domain that is spread over more than 40% of the earth's surface--85 million politically hot and militarily explosive square miles of land and sea. His command bristles with a complement of 440,000 men, 400 vessels, 3,500 planes, and countless tons of conventional and nuclear weapons.

Always more steady than spectacular in his 37-year navy career, Sharp's presence on the Pacific powder keg is a comforting thought to his Pentagon colleagues. Says one admiral: "Sharp is a solidly trained professional. He is exactly the kind of man this country needs in the Pacific right now."

"Oley" Sharp (the nickname came from his towheaded, Swede-like looks) was raised in Fort Benton, Mont., a tiny (pop. 1,887) landlocked town that has produced no fewer than four admirals.* His father was the nephew of President U. S. Grant, the Civil War giant, but Sharp was not the military type: he ran a general store. Young Oley, bored with the prospect of a merchant's life, wanted--and won--an appointment to the Naval Academy. He boxed, ran the 880 on an intramural track team, but produced a so-so scholastic record and in 1927 graduated 286th in a class of 579.

"A Real Pro." During the dead calm of the pre-World War II years he dutifully trod water in a routine variety of posts. He got married, fathered a daughter, Patricia, and a son, Grant, who is now a Navy lieutenant at the Navy Postgraduate School at Monterey, and polished his golf game to a ten-handicap shine. In mid-1942 he got a wartime command aboard a minesweeper, picked up a commendation for combat action off Casablanca, then served nearly two years on the Boyd in the Pacific. His older brother, Thomas, was also a Navyman in the war; he died in the Pacific when his submarine, Pickerel, was sunk.

During the Korean war, Sharp briefly commanded a destroyer squadron, then began a series of staff jobs. In 1960 he was appointed a vice admiral and served in the top-brass "E" Ring of the Pentagon as deputy chief of naval operations for plans and policy. There he earned a reputation as a sharp-tongued perfectionist. Recalls one officer: "There was no loose thinking, no folderol permitted. He is a forceful, concise, meticulous man."

Sharp put in driving, twelve-hour days, and mastered the Pentagon's most prized art--the ability to absorb enormous amounts of information, then ladle it out in concise, organized form during high-level briefings. Both Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Maxwell Taylor and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara quickly became Sharp admirers, and last September he took over command of the Pacific Fleet. When the critical CINCPAC appointment came up earlier this year, Oley Sharp got it.

That came as no surprise to comrades who admire Sharp's hardheaded skill in a crisis. Says an officer long associated with the admiral: "If I had to choose a man to lead me in peace or in war--a real pro--I'd choose Oley Sharp. When the going is toughest, he's at his best."

* Sharp; his cousin Rear Admiral Louis A. Sharp Jr.; Rear Admiral George C. Towner and Admiral John Hoover. Except for Oley, all are retired.

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