Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the powers of His might. Put on the whole armor of God that ye may be able to withstand the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood but spiritual principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6:10-12
When I was ten years old, my father announced we were moving to Japan. We lived there for a little over four years, and it was one of the most memorable times of my life. On our naval base in Yokosuka, some of the nicest homes were located on a street called Nimitz Court. It wasn’t until I grew up and moved to Texas that I fully understood the significance of that name.
Now I know what a hero Admiral Chester Nimitz was!
In 1975 the largest nuclear warship of its day, the Nimitz took to the sea. Today, the aircraft carrier is part of Carrier Strike Group 9 and operates in the Pacific. The ship is 47 years old.
Since today marks the 83rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Nimitz is on my mind.
I thought I would share some memories and stories about this Texan who once prayed, “God, grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right even though I think it is hopeless.”
Chester Nimitz was born and raised in Fredericksburg, Texas at the landmark Steamboat Hotel built by his grandfather, a retired merchant marine. Long time Texans may recall that the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg began as a much smaller museum in the hotel. Chester grew up at the hotel and worked there from time to time when he was young, but his boyhood ambition was to become a surveyor; that is, until he saw the fancy uniforms of West Point cadets who were doing training exercises in Kerrville. Then, Chester decided he, too, wanted to go to West Point.
As the Lord would have it, he could not get a Congressional appointment because all the slots to West Point were filled, but he was asked if he would consider one to the Naval Academy. And so, this young Texas man who had never seen an ocean, decided to try the Navy.
Barely 16, without a high school diploma, he had to bone up on geometry, history, grammar, algebra, and geography like mad to prepare for his admission exam. Nimitz wrote, “When the time arrived for my three-day Annapolis examination, I found myself pitted against seven other hopefuls. Grandfather Nimitz’s advice ran through my head, ‘The sea, like life itself, is a stern taskmaster. Learn all you can, then do your best and don’t worry.’ It paid off. I emerged No. 1 in the test and thus began a long career that has taken me from naval cadet fourth class to five-star fleet admiral.” (A five-star admiral never retires. Chester Nimitz died in 1966 still on active duty. Only three other men in U.S. history attained the rank of five-star admiral).
I can remember visiting the Steamboat Hotel multiple times. The ground floor was full of dusty glass cases with objects haphazardly arranged, and one had to walk carefully from this small, crowded room and wind through the hotel through twisty turns and flights of stairs. It was an adventure.
In those days, the museum focused on Nimitz’s life, but there were odd things like a flight jacket purportedly belonging to Amelia Earhart. On one of those trips, I bought two copies of E. B. Potter’s authoritative biography Nimitz. That was when my admiration of the man truly began. I gave one copy to my dad and wrote, “Dad, I hope you enjoy this book. It’s about a man almost as admirable as you. Love, Kathy 1990.
When Nimitz was at Annapolis at the start of the 20th century, they war gamed for a situation where Japan could be our potential enemy and the Pacific Ocean a major theater of naval warfare, mainly because the Japanese were fighting the Russians and winning (1904-1905). Their fleet admiral was Heihachiro Togo who was a legendary leader who had won multiple naval victories.
So, after graduation in 1905, now Midshipman Nimitz was assigned to the flagship Ohio, heading to Japan. Japan had defeated Russia, and the Americans had brokered a peace agreement. While in port in Tokyo, all the officers were invited to a celebration, an Imperial Garden Party. The American midshipmen ran into difficulties and arrived late, so sat near the exit of the party room. They celebrated with bottles of Russian champagne, and the young midshipmen, being a little flushed appointed Nimitz to intercept the great Admiral Togo as he was leaving.
Nimitz stood up and introduced himself and shook Adm. Togo’s hand. He asked the famous admiral to say a few words to the table of freshly minted American officers. Admiral Togo spoke about the service and duty of a naval officer to one’s country. Years later in 1934, Capt. Nimitz would attend Admiral Togo’s funeral in Tokyo, and he marched in a procession in his honor. Later in the 1950s, five-star Admiral Nimitz would be the first to make a donation to restore Admiral Togo’s battleship, the Mikasa. I visited that ship twice when I lived in Japan, never knowing that…or that Nimitz always held Admiral Togo in such profound respect.
On December 7, 1941, Chester Nimitz was at home with his wife. By this time, Nimitz was a rear admiral serving as the head of the Bureau of Navigation. His post was concerned with training, promotion, assignment, and discipline of all officers and enlisted personnel. He lived in Washington, D.C., in an apartment with his wife and young daughters while his two adult daughters who were in their 20’s lived in the same apartment building.
In those days, the big entertainment was the radio. That Sunday, he and his wife had turned on the radio to hear the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. “Almost immediately,” Potter writes, “the broadcast was interrupted by a flash announcement that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.” Admiral Nimitz knew his life was about to change so he headed to the Navy Department immediately.
On December 16, an exhausted Admiral Nimitz was summoned to the office of the Secretary of the Navy. All the news was bad, so Nimitz was being contrary when Secretary Frank Knox asked him, “How soon can you be ready to travel?”
“It depends on where I’m going and how long I’ll be away,” he said.
“You’re going to take command of the Pacific Fleet, and I think you will be gone a long time.”
Nimitz immediately thought of who could fill his role at the Bureau of Navigation. “I’ll have to get someone to relieve me.”
“Whom do you want?” Knox asked.
“Randall Jacobs.” Captain Jacobs was Admiral Nimitz’s assistant and knew the needs and challenges of their department the best.
“You can’t have him,” replied Knox. “FDR doesn’t like him.”
“God damn it,” Nimitz exploded, “He’s the only man who can do the job.”
Nimitz got his way.
When Admiral Nimitz told his wife that he was to be the new commander of the Pacific Fleet, his wife said, “This is the job you have always wanted.”
Nimitz said, “Yes, darling, but my fleet is at the bottom of the sea. Nobody must know that here, but I’ve got to tell you.”
Admiral Nimitz bid farewell to his family with no idea if or when he would return.
Navy families are trained not to shed tears at departures and this time was no different.
Admiral Nimitz left Washington, D.C. in disguise, wearing civilian clothes. He went by rail which he found soothed his fatigued mind and gave him time to organize and plan. He went by the name Mr. Freeman. Once in San Diego, a Catalina flying boat took him to Pearl Harbor. Nimitz's biographer Potter writes, “The admiral apologized to the crew for taking them away from their families on Christmas Eve.”
The plane headed first to the Hawaiian island of Molokai for security reasons and then received fighter aircraft which escorted the admiral’s plane to Pearl Harbor.
Sunday, December 25, Christmas Day, when Admiral Nimitz saw Pearl Harbor from the air for the first time, the sight sickened him. It was raining. Oil from the sunken and damaged ships coated the waters. Smoke was still smoldering. Potter writes that two battleships, the Oklahoma and Utah were “bottoms up.” The heavily damaged Nevada was further away grounded in shallow water. “The battleships California, West Virginia, and Arizona were sunk in deeper water, only their topsides visible, with blackened and twisted masts.”
The situation was grim. Survivors were still looking for bodies. It was a terrible sight, and it was Admiral Nimitz’s responsibility not only to clean up this disaster but win the Pacific war.
In every situation, no matter how hopeless, the Bible teaches us to look for the good and to trust in Him. Nimitz realized this. He also knew in different circumstances that he could have been the man whom he came to relieve. He thought, “There but for the grace of God, go I.” When Admiral Kimmel told Nimitz he wished he had been killed, too, Nimitz touched his arm and said, “You have my sympathy. The same thing could have happened to anybody.”
One of the wisest actions Admiral Nimitz took was not to replace the CINC PAC FLEET officers. He found ways to restore their confidence and rebuild their morale. After completing his inspections, he gave a speech and made five important observations.
First, while the attack on Pearl Harbor seemed a catastrophe beyond measure, Admiral Nimitz observed. “The several errors made by the Japanese on December 7th, 1941, helped very materially to shorten the war. Their failure to come back a second day to destroy our repair facility at the Navy Yard and to burn our four and one-half million barrels of fuel oil in surface tanks was a most serious error. These tanks could have been destroyed by machine guns shooting them with 50-caliber incendiary bullets.
“Likewise, the Japanese made an even more serious error on December 7th by leaving our submarine base on Quarry Point free from attack. As a consequence, …the submarines could proceed immediately to stations in the far western Pacific and start their long campaign of destruction of the Japanese merchant marine vessels which was a primary factor in the defeat of Japan. The submarines sank more than 75% of Japanese merchant marine shipping.”
He also points out that they attacked on a Sunday morning when fewer crew members were on board the ships. If Admiral Kimmel had been given advance warning and put the battleships to sea, he would have been in a terrible position. Admiral Nimitz writes that the Japanese had six aircraft carriers, “whereas Admiral Kimmel had none--…Imagine, if you can, what would have happened to our slower battleships in such an action with the Japanese aircraft of six carriers working on them and with our Fleet having no air cover at all.
Remember that on December 7, the Japanese destroyed all the aviation strength of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps on Oahu. Instead of losing some 3,700 to 3,800 men as we did at Pearl Harbor, we would have lost by drowning or capture almost 20,000 men had our fleet been in deep water.”
“Next, the men rescued from the sunken ships in Pearl Harbor were used to form the nuclei of crews that manned the new ships that were coming down the ways in the United States. Had our old fleet not been so completely destroyed, there might have been difficulty in securing the funds to build the ships needed to match the more modern Japanese ships.
“Finally, the Japanese attack served to unify our country which was not at all sure it wanted to get mixed up in World War II.
“By this time, you will agree that the good Lord was looking out for us although it didn’t seem so at the time,” he concluded.
So it was, December 7 is a day that we should all remember. We should also remember Admiral Chester Nimitz. He was loved by his men, his country, and even by his former enemies.
Admiral Nimitz used his wisdom, foresight, and determination to win the war in the Pacific, and afterwards he worked just as hard with the same integrity to bring back goodwill between our two nations.
One of my favorite places in Fredericksburg is The Peace Garden, a gift from the Japanese people to honor the memory of Admiral Chester Nimitz. One last story explains why.
The day before the Japanese signed their surrender to the United States aboard the USS Missouri, Admiral Nimitz toured the deteriorating battleship Mikasa that fleet Admiral Heihachiro Togo had commanded to defeat the Russians. Shocked that the ship had been stripped of all its brass and copper for war-making materiel, he believed that there should be no more looting of the ship. So, Admiral Nimitz assigned our Marines as sentries to prevent further looting. The Japanese people remembered this kindness and then praised Nimitz again for being the first to donate to a fundraising campaign to restore the Mikasa.
Admiral Chester Nimitz, the man who turned ploughshares into swords and turned them back into ploughshares, was a great man. Admiral Ellis Eller said about Nimitz, “It is not wealth that makes a great nation, but the virtues of its people.” Admiral Nimitz was one of those people that should make all Americans, but especially Texans proud.
Researching this article, I found this quote attributed to Admiral Chester Nimitz , also called, “A Prayer of the Confederate Soldier.” Nimitz used this prayer on occasion. It is beautiful and goes like this:
"I asked God for strength that I might achieve. I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey. I asked for health that I might do greater things. I was given infirmity that I might do better things. I asked for riches that I might be happy. I was given poverty that I might be wise. I asked for power that I might have the praise of men. I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God. I asked for all things that I might enjoy life. I was given life that I might enjoy all things. I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for. In spite of myself, my unspoken prayers were answered. I am, among all men, most richly blessed.”
Portions of this article originally appeared in the Brenham Banner Press on December 4, 2022.
Bonus Material
MORE BONUS MATERIAL
If you have gotten this far, you are in for a treat. Here is a list of rules on leadership that I created many years ago after reading E.B. Potter's biography Nimitz.
Nimitz's 20 Rules on Leadership
Be confident.
Seek input.
Do careful research.
Ask your people, "Do you have everything you need to be successful? What else can I do to make your job easier?" (Nimitz said this was important with a specific difficult project such as the attack on Midway).
Tell your people stories, especially funny ones. Have a sense of playfulness but be shrewd.
Show your people that you trust them.
Promote your people in advance of a major task.
Treat everyone with respect and respect everyone's labor. (Nimitz required the reservist and the active duty to wear the same uniform so there would be equality.
Rotate people. Get desk people into the battle and vice versa. This will reinvigorate the staff.
Choose your personal staff slowly and carefully.
Never hesitate to replace an officer or enlisted man who does not measure up to the task.
In training, give your people as much responsibility as they can handle, more than they think they are capable of.
Do not broadcast your expectations but convey them individually and subtly. Expect excellence for the sake of each person's pride and self-fulfillment.
Never do anything yourself that you can delegate to your staff. "Conning the ship is ensign's work," Nimitz was quoted as saying.
Correct your staff by using the first person. "Well, if I were doing this I would have done it this way."
Find creative ways to teach risky tasks. Nimitz would have his ensigns practice docking the ship by tossing a box into the ocean and pretend the box was the wharf and the officers would practice bringing the ship alongside it as if it were the dock.
Capitalize on your people's special talents. That means you have to know your staff and find out what their talents are!
Meet all of your people. Tell them what the plans are and what you are doing. Find out what they are doing. Are they happy? What help do they need? Your people need to know that they have an identity to Commander-in-Chief.
Be punctual and expect punctuality.
Keep your key staff small.