Lyndon B. Johnson
Active military duty (1941–1942)

Johnson was appointed a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve on June 21, 1940. While serving as a U.S. representative, he was called to active duty three days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. His first orders were to report to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington, D.C., for instruction and training. Following his training, Johnson asked Undersecretary of the Navy James Forrestal for a job in Washington, D.C. He was instead sent to inspect shipyard facilities in Texas and on the West Coast. In the spring of 1942, President Roosevelt decided he needed better information on conditions in the Southwest Pacific, and wanted a trusted political ally to obtain it. Forrestal suggested Johnson. Roosevelt assigned Johnson to a three-man survey team covering the Southwest Pacific.

Johnson reported to General Douglas MacArthur in Australia. Johnson and two U.S. Army officers went to the 22nd Bomb Group base, which was assigned the high-risk mission of bombing the Japanese airbase at Lae in New Guinea. On June 9, 1942, Johnson volunteered as an observer for an airstrike on New Guinea. Reports vary on what happened to the aircraft carrying Johnson during that mission. MacArthur recommended Johnson for the Silver Star for gallantry in action; the citation indicated that the mission came under attack and Johnson's aircraft experienced mechanical problems, forcing it to turn back before reaching its objective. Others claim that the aircraft turned back because of generator trouble before encountering enemy aircraft and never came under fire, an account that is supported by the aircraft's official flight records. Other airplanes that continued came under fire near the target about the same time Johnson's plane was recorded as having landed back at the original airbase. Johnson's biographer Robert Caro was quoted as saying "I think that the weight of the evidence at this moment is that the plane was attacked by Zeroes and that he was cool under fire", but also "The fact is, LBJ never got within sight of Japanese forces. His combat experience was a myth."

Johnson used a movie camera to record conditions, and reported to Roosevelt, Navy leaders, and Congress that conditions were deplorable and unacceptable. Some historians have suggested this was in exchange for MacArthur's recommendation to award the Silver Star. He argued that the southwest Pacific urgently needed a higher priority and a larger share of war supplies. Warplanes that were sent there were "far inferior" to Japanese planes, and U.S. Navy morale there was poor. Johnson told Forrestal that the Pacific Fleet had a "critical" need for 6,800 additional experienced men. Johnson prepared a twelve-point program to upgrade the effort in the region, stressing "greater cooperation and coordination within the various commands and between the different war theaters". Congress responded by making Johnson chairman of a high-powered subcommittee of the Naval Affairs Committee, with a mission similar to that of the Truman Committee in the Senate. He probed the peacetime "business as usual" inefficiencies that permeated the naval war and demanded that admirals get the job done. Johnson went too far when he proposed a bill that would crack down on the draft exemptions of shipyard workers if they were absent from work too often; organized labor blocked the bill and denounced him. Johnson's biographer Robert Dallek concludes, "The mission was a temporary exposure to danger calculated to satisfy Johnson's personal and political wishes, but it also represented a genuine effort on his part, however misplaced, to improve the lot of America's fighting men."

In addition to the Silver Star, Johnson received the American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal. He was discharged from active duty on July 17, 1942, but remained in the Navy Reserve, where he was promoted to commander on October 19, 1949, effective June 2, 1948. He resigned from the Navy Reserve effective January 18, 1964.
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