Felt, Harry Donald, “Don” born 21-06-1902, in Topeka, Shawnee County, 
Kansas, United States, to Harry Victor Felt (1869–1949) 
and his wife Grace Greenwood, born Johnson, Felt (1877–1949) 
Harry had one sister, Alma Josephine Felt (1905-1906) 
. Harry was married to Kathryn, born Cowley Felt (1906–1999) and the couple had one son, Admiral Donald Linn Felt (1931–2011) 
Harry attended public school in Goodland, Kansas before moving with his family to Washington, D.C. at the age of ten. Lacking money for college, Felt entered a cram school to prepare for the U.S. Naval Academy 
and was appointed in 1919.
At the Academy, Felt earned good grades but graduated in 1923 with an unremarkable class rank of 152 out of 413, having accumulated nearly as many demerits as anyone in his class.
As a junior officer, Felt served five years aboard the battleship Mississippi 
and the destroyer Farenholt 
before applying for flight training out of sheer boredom. From then on, naval aviation became his career focus. While training at Naval Air Station Pensacola 
from 1928 to 1929, Felt met Kathryn Cowley, whom he married on 03-08-1929, after warning her that the Navy would always come first. She later remarked that even as a newlywed, Felt’s life was “just fly, fly, fly”.
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, 
Felt was transferred to command the air group on the carrier Saratoga, 
with a promotion to Commander in January 1942. During the Battle of the Eastern Solomons on 24-08-1942, Felt led Air Group 3 (AG-3) from the Saratoga in an attack that sank the Japanese light carrier Ryūjō. 
Diving with his second wave of bombers through enemy flak and fighters, Felt personally scored the first of his group’s several 1,000-pound bomb hits on the carrier. 
In January 1943, Felt was assigned as the commanding officer of Naval Air Station Daytona Beach, and in February, he became the commanding officer of Naval Air Station Miami. He was promoted to captain in July of the same year. In March 1944, Felt became the first naval aviator assigned to the U.S. Military Mission to Moscow. He later commanded the escort carrier Chenango 
from February 1945 to January 1946, which included heavy participation in the Battle of Okinawa from March through June. Following the battle, Felt was involved in Operation Magic Carpet, ferrying servicemen home at the war’s end.
After the war, Felt was assigned to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations before attending the National War College from 1947 to 1948. He commanded the carrier Franklin D. Roosevelt 
in the Atlantic and Mediterranean from 03-08-1948, to 11-07-1949. Harry was on the staff at the Naval War College from 1949 to 1951, becoming chief of staff in the spring of 1950 and serving as acting president from 17-10-1950, to 01-12-1950. Harry was promoted to Rear Admiral in January 1951.
In March 1951, Felt was assigned to command the Middle East Force in the Persian Gulf, becoming the first flag officer to serve in that position. He later described his principal adversaries during that tour as the British, who greatly resented American intrusion into what they considered to be their exclusive sphere of influence. After returning to the Navy Department in October, Felt worked for Rear Admiral Burke, Arleigh Albert “31 Knot Burke” 
the assistant director of the Strategic Plans Division.
Felt served as commander of Carrier Division 15 in 1953 and 1954, practicing anti-submarine warfare from the escort carrier Rendova. He commanded Carrier Division Three in the spring of 1954, operating attack carriers Essex and Philippine Sea in the South China Sea. He then served as the assistant chief of naval operations (fleet readiness) from 1954 to 1956.
Felt strongly opposed deploying American soldiers into Vietnam. In internal administration debates, he warned that the proposed American intervention lacked a sound strategic concept and “would commit the U.S. to another Korea-type support and assistance situation” from which “we can’t pull out at will without damaging repercussions.” In a conference with General Maxwell Davenport Taylor, 
military representative to President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 
Felt stressed that introducing U.S. troops into Indochina would be perceived throughout Asia as the reintroduction of white colonialism into Vietnam, would provoke intensified communist aggression, and would entangle U.S. soldiers in military engagements with the Viet Cong. In early 1962, Felt presciently predicted that Viet Cong forces would seek “a prolonged form of attritional warfare” that could not “be defeated by purely military means.” His favored policy was to organize, train, and equip indigenous Vietnamese forces while keeping U.S. troops out of the country.
Death and burial ground of Felt, Harry Donald “Don”.
Felt retired in July 1964 upon reaching the mandatory retirement age and spent his later years in Honolulu, Hawaii. Harry Felt died on 25-02-1992, age 89, in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States and is buried beside his wife in Arlington National Cemetery, Section 6, Lot 5024-A.. He had one son, Donald Linn Felt, a naval aviator and jet pilot who commanded the carrier USS Midway (CV-41) before retiring at the rank of Rear Admiral.
Felt, Harry had a fearsome reputation as an arrogant, caustic, hard-driving perfectionist. “Many people were afraid of him… he was pretty rough,” commented Vice Admiral Lawson Paterson “Red” Ramage.
A former aide described him as “mean as hell,” and his staff complained that he worked “as though there were no holidays, Saturdays and Sundays, and expects others to do the same.” “He was small in stature but a blunt, tough, demanding taskmaster who brought discomfiture to his peers and earned the antipathy, if not animosity, of his subordinates,” judged former subordinate and future four-star admiral Ignatius J. “Pete” Galantin. 
A crack poker player, Felt unapologetically summarized his philosophy as, “Trust everybody, but always cut the cards.”
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