The Personal Website of Mark W. Dawson

Admiral Chester W. Nimitz

The United States Navy has produced many great Admirals, none so much as in World War II. The Fleet Admirals of the U.S. Navy Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King were great Admirals. The book The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea by Walter R. Borneman is an examination of the greatness of these four Admirals:

“Only four men in American history have been promoted to the five-star rank of Admiral of the Fleet: William Leahy, Ernest King, Chester Nimitz, and William Halsey. These four men were the best and the brightest the navy produced, and together they led the U.S. navy to victory in World War II, establishing the United States as the world's greatest fleet.

In The Admirals, award-winning historian Walter R. Borneman tells their story in full detail for the first time. Drawing upon journals, ship logs, and other primary sources, he brings an incredible historical moment to life, showing us how the four admirals revolutionized naval warfare forever with submarines and aircraft carriers, and how these men -- who were both friends and rivals -- worked together to ensure that the Axis fleets lay destroyed on the ocean floor at the end of World War II.”

Of these, the one that I admire the most is Admiral Chester W. Nimitz.

Chester William Nimitz was born on February 24, 1885, near a quaint hotel in Fredericksburg, Texas, built by his grandfather, Charles Nimitz, a retired sea captain. Young Chester, however, had his sights set on an Army career, and while a student at Tivy High School, Kerrville, Texas, he tried for an appointment to West Point. When none was available, he took a competitive examination for Annapolis and was selected and appointed from the Twelfth Congressional District of Texas in 1901. A fortuitous circumstance that was to have a far-reaching impact on World War II in the Pacific.

After the debacle of the Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese Navy on December 7, 1941, Admiral Nimitz was designated as Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet and Pacific Ocean Areas, where he served throughout the war. It was in this command that Admiral Nimitz's greatness flourished. At the start of World War II in the Pacific, the American Navy was in a mess. Steeped in bureaucracy and internal politics and hidebound to the Naval strategy and tactics of World War I, especially in its dependence on Battleship naval warfare, the American Navy was ill-prepared to engage in naval warfare in the Pacific.

Admiral Nimitz recognized these problems and immediately set about to correct them. He recognized the future of naval warfare was in aircraft carriers and submarine warfare. He also realized that he needed aggressive commanders unafraid to take prudent bold actions to achieve victory at sea, and he set out to replace and reassign commanders that did not fit this criterion. He also promoted junior officers over more senior officers that met his criterion.

Also, at the start of World War II in the Pacific, many of the naval leadership in Washington D.C., and many politicians, believed that he should adopt a strategy of retreat, regroup, and rearm the Navy for the protection of Hawaii and the American west coast before starting aggressive actions against the Imperial Japanese Navy. Admiral Nimitz disagreed with this strategy and ignored their advice. He believed that it was necessary to blunt the aggression of the Imperial Japanese Navy before they could seize and maintain control of important strategic territories.

He also trusted his naval intelligence in Hawaii when many others were questioning all intelligence after the failure of intelligence to predict the attack on Pearl Harbor. When his naval intelligence learned of the Japanese plans for offensive action in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, he ordered his fleet to the Coral Sea to oppose these actions. In the Battle of the Coral Sea on May 4-8, 1942, the American Navy thwarted the Japanese plans, and they withdrew from further actions. Although the battle was considered a stalemate, and American losses were greater than Japanese losses, it was a strategic victory as it was the first time the Imperial Japanese Navy was unsuccessful in obtaining its goals. The battle is also historically significant in that it was the first action in which aircraft carriers engaged each other and the first in which the opposing ships neither sighted nor fired directly upon one another.

The Battle of Midway on June 4–7, 1942, turned out to be the turning point of World War II in the Pacific. Admiral Nimitz's naval intelligence learned of a major offensive that the Imperial Japanese Navy was planning. Although American naval intelligence was confident that the major offensive was to occur at the beginning of June 1942, they had no idea where this battle was to be fought. American naval intelligence set a trap in which the Japanese unknowingly revealed the target of this major offensive – Midway Island. Despite grave concerns from the naval leadership in Washington D.C that this intelligence was unreliable and could be false, Admiral Nimitz believed in this intelligence and acted upon it. He ordered the American fleet to oppose this Japanese offensive, unbeknownst by the Japanese, and surprised the Imperial Japanese Navy, and decisively defeated them at the Battle of Midway. A defeat that was so shattering that the most intelligent Japanese military leaders realized that it was no longer possible for Japan to win the war. After the Battle of Midway, Afterwich their only hope was for them to draw out the war and make it so costly in casualties and materials that America would sue for peace, thus assuring the continuation of Imperial Japan. They, therefore, shifted from an offensive war to a defensive war.

Admiral Nimitz had turned the tide of World War II in the Pacific by believing in his strategy and his naval intelligence and ignoring the naval leadership in Washington D.C. It is even more remarkable that he did this within six months of the start of World War II in the Pacific. He then set about implementing his other strategies, with minimal interference of the naval leadership in Washington D.C.

Admiral Nimitz then formulated and implemented his strategy of Leapfrogging naval battles and submarine warfare against Japanese maritime shipping. Leapfrogging, also known as island hopping, was a military strategy employed by the Allies in the Pacific War against the Empire of Japan during World War II. The key idea is to bypass heavily fortified enemy islands instead of trying to capture every island in sequence en route to a final target. The reasoning is that those islands can simply be cut off from their supply chains (leading to their eventual capitulation) rather than needing to be overwhelmed by superior force, thus speeding up progress and reducing losses of troops and material.

U.S. submarines hunting Japanese maritime shipping, by war's end, had destroyed over half of all Japanese merchant ships, totaling well over five million tons of shipping. British and Dutch submarines also took part in attacks on Japanese shipping, mostly in coastal waters. Japanese submarines were initially successful in defending their maritime shipping, destroying two U.S. fleet aircraft carriers, a cruiser, and several other ships. However, by following the Japanese doctrine that concentrated on attacking Allied warships rather than more-vulnerable merchantmen, the smaller Japanese fleet proved ineffectual in the long term while suffering heavy losses to Allied anti-submarine measures. As Japan was dependent on its maritime shipping to feed its people and war production manufacturing, Admiral Nimitz believed that he could starve Japan into submission faster than an invasion of Japan could beat Japan into submission. At a minimum, Japan would have less war material to fight the war. This effective Allied submarine warfare against Japanese maritime shipping resulted in the loss of

The one major disappointment of his strategy occurred near the end of the war. General MacArthur of the Army and Admiral Nimitz of the Navy disagreed about the next Allied campaign to undertake. General MacArthur advocated for the invasion of the Philippines, while Admiral Nimitz advocated for the capture and occupation of Formosa (now Taiwan).

Formosa is a large island between the Philippines and mainland China in the South and East China Seas. Admiral Nimitz believed that if Formosa was captured and occupied, the Navy could stop Japanese shipping on these seas of crucial raw materials and food supplies to Japan, as the American Navy was doing to the east and north of the Philippines Islands in the Philippine Sea. As Japan was dependent on this shipping to feed its people and war production manufacturing, Admiral Nimitz believed that he could starve Japan into submission faster than an invasion of Japan could beat Japan into submission. At a minimum, Japan would have less war material to fight the war. It would also be possible to utilize Formosa as a staging area for an invasion of the Philippines if that was deemed necessary and proper.

General MacArthur believed that we should invade the Philippines, as the Philippines were American territory and that there was an extensive Philippine Resistance Movement that needed relief. It would also be possible to stop Japanese shipping of crucial raw materials and food supplies to Japan from the Philippines. Besides this, General MacArthur had also promised the Philippine people at the start of the war that he (and thus America) would return, and America had a political and moral obligation to return. He also underestimated the number of casualties and destruction that would be inflicted upon Allied troops and the Philippine people in waging the Philippines invasion.

From a strictly military perspective, an invasion of Formosa would be less costly, have the same strategic results, and could be achieved more expeditiously than a Philippines invasion. However, it was finally decided that the political and moral obligation of invading the Philippines would take precedence over a Formosa invasion, and the Invasion of the Philippines was therefore approved to the disappointment of Admiral Nimitz. However, once the Invasion of the Philippines was approved, Admiral Nimitz brought forth the full support of the Navy for this invasion.

Through his decisive offensive actions at the start of World War II in the Pacific and his strategy and tactics of Leapfrogging naval battles and submarine warfare against Japanese maritime shipping, Admiral Nimitz shortened the war, and he demonstrated concerns for the safety and minimization of casualties while attempting to expeditiously end the war. And he did this by doing what he thought best despite the reservations of others. Therefore, Admiral Nimitz should be considered one of the best admirals in U.S. Navy history and, indeed, one of the greatest admirals in all naval history. This is also why he is my favorite American admiral.