Danforth Whitcomb
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| Danforth Whitcomb | |
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September 13, 2552 (revised slipspace date) (aged 63) |
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Male[1] |
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186 centimeters (6 ft 1 in)[1] |
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117 kilograms (258 lb)[1] |
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Brown[1] |
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11113-32871-DW[1] | |
- "I know all that, and you're three hundred percent correct, Lieutenant. But, I won't leave a single man or woman behind on this planet for the Covenant to tear apart for sport. No way. And that goes double for a Spartan. We're going in."
- — Whitcomb to LT Elias Haverson on Reach[2]
Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb was the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for the United Nations Space Command Navy.[3] In August 2552, he was one of the many UNSC leadership involved in the Fall of Reach, though was extracted in the days following the battle by John-117 and the SPARTAN-II survivors of the cataclysm. This led to Whitcomb's death during the subsequent Operation: FIRST STRIKE, which saw his self-sacrifice in order to secure the destruction of the Covenant battlestation Unyielding Hierophant.
Despite his death, Whitcomb's legacy lives on in the form of the NOVA bomb, the most destructive nuclear weapon in the UNSC arsenal and one that would later be used to destroy two Covenant worlds - Saepon'kal and Glyke, the former personally done by Whitcomb, who armed the bomb himself. These posthumous destructive attacks in combination with the destruction of Unyielding Hierophant and its fleet have secured Whitcomb as the single human with the highest number of Covenant kills that can be personally accredited to one person.[1]
As Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, Whitcomb was subordinate to Fleet Admiral Lord Terrence Hood, the Chief of Naval Operations. In this role, he held a seat on the UNSC Security Council.[4]
Biography[edit]
Early life and military career[edit]
Danforth Whitcomb was born on Earth on July 3, 2489.[1] He would claim to have descended from Russian Cossacks, though his accent suggested that he originated from the Texas area.[2] During the Human-Covenant War, Whitcomb fought in the Battle of New Constantinople and the Siege of the Atlas Moons, and as such, every SPARTAN-II had studied his record.[2] Throughout his career, Whitcomb was repeatedly criticised for his unorthodox tactics and strategies, though his insight had proven correct each time,[5] eventually allowing him to rise to the rank of Vice Admiral and hold the seat of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations.
During the war, Whitcomb headed up the YGGDRASIL program, a research endeavour intended to run parallel to Dr. Catherine Halsey's Project MJOLNIR in the creation of powered exoskeletons and other related technologies. The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) created YGGDRASIL in order to take the offshoot technologies developed by Halsey for MJOLNIR and investigate how they may be further applied in other areas of military R&D, in conjunction with corporate partners. In 2535, YGGDRASIL was merged with the much older Project HRUNTING due to that project reaching its dead end, pairing scientists and technicians from both programs with funding by the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Materials Group, among other corporations. The results of the combined HRUNTING/YGGDRASIL project included the development of the Mark I Armor Defense System, Mark I (H) exoskeleton, Mark II Geyrion, Mark II Colossus. and Mark IX Mantis.[6][7]
In 2551, Whitcomb become involved in a dispute between UNSC Army Colonel James Ackerson and SPARTAN-II John-117 over personnel assignments for the then-upcoming Operation: METEORITE. This escalated into an exercise that pitted the Spartan against several Mark I (H) exoskeletons in order to prove that the Spartans were right for the task at hand. The purpose of the mission was to capture data from the kelguid on the Covenant logistics vessel Triumph of Tolerance in the hopes of finding the location of the Covenant homeworld. After John-117 demonstrated how flawed the exoskeletons were, Whitcomb agreed against using Ackerson's operators and placed the Spartan in charge of figuring out who his team should be as the other Spartan-IIs were currently unavailable. John-117 requested Sergeant Major Avery Johnson and the Spirit dropship that Ackerson's people had recently captured.[8]
The admiral was also involved in the research project for the then-prototype NOVA bombs, a planet-killing weapon intended to help the UNSC even the playing field in space warfare.[2]
Fall of Reach[edit]
- Main article: Fall of Reach
Whitcomb was stationed on Reach in summer of 2552, when the Covenant, led by the Fleet of Valiant Prudence, entered the system. Even despite initial UNSC successes against the invaders, Whitcomb felt that the planet's fall was inevitable. When evacuations began, Whitcomb stayed behind to secure the nascent NOVA bomb project and try to use them to fend off the inevitable, though was caught off-guard when the combined Covenant fleet arrived on August 30 to deliver the killing blow. As such, Whitcomb instead intended to repurpose the NOVA bombs, setting them on an automated timer and leaving them for the Covenant to find with the hopes that they would take them aboard one of their ships and return them to one of their worlds, or that they would detonate while still on Reach and take the Covenant armada assembled around the planet with it.[2]
At around 0500 hours on August 30, Whitcomb became the commander of all UNSC forces involved in the defence of Reach operating in the Reach Defense Coordination Zone. This followed an attack on Reach High Command which left most of the senior officers dead alongside the simultaneous defeat of the UNSC fleet in orbit, including the death of Vice Admiral Michael Stanforth and presumed death of Admiral Roland Freemont. Whitcomb and his staff were able to escape the facility's destruction, ultimately hiking south-east and holing up in a gully located in the Highland Mountains. At around 0700, he personally radioed Charlie Company, who were defending