Admiral
Chester W. Nimitz took command of the US Pacific Fleet on this day 75 years
ago. His change of command ceremony was
held on board the submarine Grayling, SS-209 moored alongside the submarine
base wharf. The crew then hoisted his
brand new four star flag on the Grayling’s mast. Normally a Fleet Admiral would have raised
his flag on a battleship but of course there were none available. But there were sentimental reasons for the
choice of the Grayling also as Nimitz had served in subs earlier in his career,
commanding the Plunger, Snapper, Narwhal and Skipjack.
On 7 December Nimitz was Chief of BuNav, aka the Bureau
of Navigation, and was soon tapped by SecNav Knox and President Roosevelt to
take over the fleet in Pearl Harbor. Being in a desk job at BuNav may not sound
like preparation for a fleet commander, but at that time it was accountable for
much more than sextants, star catalogues, and oceanic charts. It was the
primary naval organization responsible for procurement, training, promotion,
assignment, and discipline of officers and sailors. In that job Nimitz had
jurisdiction over the Naval Academy at Annapolis, the Naval Reserve Officers
Training Corps (of which he was a founder), boot camps, and other Naval
training facilities including technical ones. It was a job for an officer with
outstanding people skills. Nimitz had those, even though he also had noticeable
engineering skills. He had been a pioneer in adopting diesels for US subs.
During WW1 he had developed one of the first ever UNREP, or Underway Refueling
Systems, for cross Atlantic Navy combatants. Not long after WW1, as a young
Lieutenant Commander (Major to you grunts) and with only a staff of four Chief
Petty Officers, he built the sub base at Pearl Harbor. Much of the material he
had to get through the cumshaw efforts of his four Chiefs who requisitioned it
at midnight from stateside Navy Yards.After Pearl was attacked Nimitz spent 12 days working around the clock at BuNav and at the Navy Department across the Potomac. He implemented the plan he had himself devised to bring the Navy up to a war standing. Then on 19 December he left Washington by the B&0 Capital Limited train for San Diego with just one Aide. No need for staff as there would be many officers in Pearl at loose ends who had no ships. He travelled incognito as Mr Freeman, his wife’s maiden name. In San Diego he boarded a Catalina flying boat. They left at 4pm on Christmas Eve. The Admiral apologized to the crew for taking them away from their families. He arrived at 7AM Christmas morning. After inspecting the damage in the harbor he had a late Christmas dinner with Admiral Kimmel and Admiral and Mrs Pye. Both Pye and Kimmel were senior to him and would be until he pinned on the four stars of CincPac. He was saddened to learn that a good friend of his, Admiral Isaac Kidd, was KIA on the bridge of the Arizona.
A lot has been said by historians about the good fortune of America that the Japanese raiding forces at Pearl primarily focused on battleship row and neglected to bomb the fuel farms just over the hill, and that the US carriers were at sea and unaffected. But at the time here was a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat at Pearl. You would have thought the Japanese had already won the war. Nimitz turned out to be critical in raising hopes. Over the next few days before taking command he attended many briefings and conferences, and conducted surveys of the damage. Those inspections included the harbor, damaged ships, salvage operations, dry-docks, warehouse, hangars, machine shops, communication facilities, offices and barracks. After a tour of harbor salvage ops, a coxswain asked: "Well Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?" He is reported as saying the Japanese made several huge mistakes surprising the sailor and the staff officers that were also aboard. He then expounded on the target opportunities the Japanese raiding force had missed.
"Not only were the fuel farms and the carriers saved".
”They attacked on Sunday morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave. If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk--we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,000.”
”When they saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking them, that they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships. If they had destroyed those, we would have had to tow every one of those ships to America to be repaired. As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America. And we already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships.”
”Their tunnel vision kept them from bombing the machine shops and warehouses in the Navy Yard. With those assets we will put the fleet back in order quickly."
”They also neglected to target the sub base and the subs tied up and helpless at the wharf. They will pay for those mistakes.”
That story spread around Pearl like wildfire. Everyone from the highest staff officers to the lowest swab jockey and paint chipper heard that tale. Morale skyrocketed and the depression evaporated, everyone turned to.
His people skills also served him well dealing with hard-headed subordinates like “Bull” Halsey, “Howling Mad” Smith, and “Terrible” Turner (from FDChief’s fair city of Portland) – and dealing with prima donna peers like MacArthur – and dealing with superiors like the crotchety CNO Admiral King. He also was a leader who believed in second chances. That was probably due to his running a destroyer aground outside Manila Bay in 1908 as a young Ensign, he was court-martialed and reprimanded but given another chance. I cannot imagine that happening in todays risk averse military.
