Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942

by Ian W. Toll

  The admiral walked home to his apartment at 2222 Q Street and found his wife, Catherine, in bed with a cold. He told her the news. “You always wanted to command the Pacific Fleet,” she said: “You always thought that would be the height of glory.” “Darling,” he replied, “the fleet’s at the bottom of the sea. Nobody must know that here, but I’ve got to tell you.” She helped him pack two suitcases with his white and khaki uniforms. He did not take his blues, as they were generally not worn at all in Hawaii’s tropical climate.

  On December 18, the newspapers carried the news of Kimmel’s relief and Nimitz’s appointment. The stories ran alongside Nimitz’s official navy photograph, depicting a hatchet-faced admiral with a straight, hard mouth and cold, pale eyes. As CINCPAC, Nimitz would receive a two-rung promotion, from rear admiral to full admiral. The New York Times described him as “a tanned, white-haired Texan,” and gave details of his naval career, dwelling at some length on his heroic act, while a lieutenant in 1912, of saving a sailor from drowning. Glen Perry of the New York Sun confided in his diary, “Washington reaction is that this is a smart move, and that public confidence will be greater as the result.” Because Nimitz was almost totally unknown outside the navy, and instinctively shunned publicity, an impression took hold in the public mind that he was a “sundowner”—a hard man and a harsh disciplinarian, ill-humored and remote. That impression was badly mistaken, but for the time being it did no harm. It was an image suitable to his rank and profession, especially during wartime. In truth, though he was punctilious in observing naval etiquette, and could throw daggers with a glare or a low tone of voice, Nimitz’s natural leadership style relied to a great degree on personal warmth.

  Only a week and a half had passed since the attack on Pearl, but it seemed as if the war had been going on for a month or more. Nimitz had been going flat-out for ten days, and he was physically and mentally exhausted. Secretary Knox had ordered that a navy plane be readied to fly the new C-in-C to the west coast, where he would catch another for Hawaii. But Nimitz put his foot down—he needed a few days, as he put it, “to catch up on my sleep and collect my thoughts.” What he had in mind was a three-day journey by rail to California, in a comfortable Pullman sleeping car, during which he would replenish his strength and study the briefing reports that had piled up in his inbox. He would leave on Friday, December 19, and arrive in California three days later.

  He worked late into the night on Thursday, but devoted Friday morning to his family, going to see one of his daughters, Mary, perform in a school Christmas pageant. His wife, son, and other daughter did not know how long he would be gone, but they were a navy family, and long separations were an ordeal they had learned to expect and endure. No tears were shed. “At no point did I break down,” Mrs. Nimitz later recalled. “I was brought up by my mother to take what’s coming, and you don’t weep over it. You have to go through things.” At Union Station, where the platforms were swarming with servicemen and holiday travelers, Nimitz boarded the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad’s “Capitol Limited” for the overnight journey to Chicago. He was accompanied by his trusty squire, Lieutenant Lamar, who had been ordered to see that Nimitz ate properly and got plenty of rest. Admiral James O. Richardson, chairman of the Naval General Board, had given Lamar two bottles of Old Granddad, and told the lieutenant to pour “two good slugs” for Nimitz each night before dinner. For the sake of security, the two men traveled incognito, in civilian clothing and under false names. Nimitz’s ticket identified him as “Mr. Freeman”—his wife’s maiden name.

  The train rolled out of Washington and into the patchwork corn fields of rural Maryland. Darkness fell in late afternoon, and Lamar broke out the whiskey. With a drink or two in him, Nimitz revealed more of himself to Lamar than he ever had while at the office. He bantered contentedly and told off-color jokes. He tried to teach the lieutenant the rules of cribbage, but the younger man could not seem to wrap his mind around the game, and Nimitz soon gave up and played solitaire. Later, they went to dinner. That night, as they slept like dead men in their swaying bunks, the train rolled through the industrial heartland of the upper Midwest—Pittsburgh, Youngstown, Akron, Gary—and the next morning, with the skyscrapers of Chicago looming in the distance, Nimitz awoke “really refreshed and feeling that I could cope with the situation.”

  THE FUTURE FLEET ADMIRAL had been born in 1885, in a cramped limestone cottage in Fredericksburg, Texas, a German immigrant enclave in the hill country west of Austin. He had been raised under the roof of the small, redbrick Nimitz Hotel on Fredericksburg’s Main Street—the hotel built by his grandfather and run by his father and uncle (who after his father’s death married his mother and became his stepfather). His ancestors were Saxon-Germans of the titled warrior-gentry class: the von Nimitz family could trace its lineage back to the twelfth century, and had once borne a coat of arms. In the mid-nineteenth century, however, Nimitz’s great-grandfather had fallen on hard times. Forced to abandon what remained of the family estates, he sought employment as a merchant sea captain. In 1840, he immigrated to America.

  As a boy, Chester was never allowed to forget his German heritage: at home, and around town, he spoke as much German as English. In tribute to his great-grandfather’s seafaring career, the Nimitz Hotel had been built to resemble a steamship in shape and appearance, and the interior detail was nautical-themed. When Chester was six, the family moved down the road to Kerrville, where they managed another hotel, the St. Charles. It was a poor country inn, never turning much of a profit, and the entire family bore a hand in keeping it running. Chester was never a stranger to hard work. Even as a child he rose before dawn to begin his chores—cleaning, mopping, dusting, chopping wood, lighting fires, hauling garbage. From about the age of twelve he delivered meat for a local butcher, earning a dollar a week. In the warmer months he wore no shoes. At night he often manned the hotel’s front desk until ten o’clock. Then he fell into bed and was up again before dawn.

  Nimitz did not expect to go to college; his family was too poor to afford it. But in the summer of 1900, when he was fifteen years old, two U.S. Army lieutenants spent a night at the hotel. They gave him the encouraging news that West Point was free of tuition to all who could win admission. He wrote the local congressman, and was told that all of the district’s West Point appointments for that year had already been made, but there was one Annapolis appointment still available. It would be made on the basis of a competitive entrance exam to be given the following spring. He would be applying in his junior high school year, one year early, so he had not yet had all the relevant coursework. Nimitz rose at three each morning and cracked the books in the predawn darkness. He was popular around town, known to all as “Cottonhead,” so when he announced his intention to take the exam, many in his little community were keen to help. A local teacher tutored him in algebra, geometry, history, geography, and grammar; his high school principal helped him with mathematics. In the spring of 1901, Nimitz passed the exam with the highest marks of all the district’s applicants, and won his place in the Naval Academy class of 1905.

  From the start, it was clear that Nimitz had chosen the right profession. The daily routine was austere and exhausting, but no more so than his life in Texas. The midshipmen rose early, but not as early as Nimitz had risen at home. They lived in a drafty, crumbling wooden annex, but Nimitz had never experienced luxurious living and never expected anything else. He was poor, but that made no difference at the academy: he was always popular with his classmates, and emerged as a natural leader. He never struggled in the classroom. The only subject that gave him any trouble was mathematics, but even in that subject he stood near the head of his class. He won three stripes and was named commander of the Eighth Company, a high honor. At graduation, Nimitz stood seventh in his class of 114.

  “A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays and confident tomorrows. . . . Possesses that calm and steady-going Dutch way that gets to the bottom of things.” That was the tribute written to twenty-year-
old Chester W. Nimitz by the editors of the Lucky Bag, the Naval Academy yearbook of 1905. The quote, from Wordsworth’s Excursion, was apt: it got at Nimitz’s qualities of serenity, humility, and good-fellowship. He had a pleasant face and an easy manner. He was comfortable in his own skin. He was one of those rare souls who managed to be both supremely confident and genuinely modest.

  In the early years of his naval career, Nimitz served in many capacities—afloat and ashore, on gunboats, submarines, destroyers, cruisers, and battleships, in recruiting, personnel management, and war planning. As a young officer he served with the U.S. Asiatic Fleet in East Asia. In 1905, when he was billeted on the battleship Ohio, the ship put into Tokyo Bay. There he met the great Japanese admiral Heihachiro Togo. Beginning in 1909, Nimitz served in the navy’s fledging submarine service. In 1912, he received the Silver Lifesaving Medal for saving the life of W. J. Walsh, Fireman second class, who was swept off the deck of the submarine E-1 and carried away by a strong tide. The twenty-six-year-old lieutenant dived into the sea and went after the man, who could not swim—he kept Walsh afloat until they were rescued by a boat. Later that year, Nimitz, still a lieutenant, was given command of the Atlantic submarine force. He became a recognized expert in submarine tactics: in 1912, he published an article on the subject in the Naval Institute Proceedings, the trade journal of the naval officer corps. He emerged as the navy’s foremost expert in diesel submarine engines.

  During the First World War he served in the office of the chief of naval operations in Washington, and later as executive officer of the battleship South Carolina. He attended the Naval War College, a ticket that every officer on his way to flag rank had to punch. Here he was indoctrinated in War Plan Orange and the likely scenarios for a war against Japan in the Pacific; later he was to say: “I was asked once how we were able to fight the war in the Pacific, and I said that we fought it just as we had fought it all on paper in the Naval War College. I fought the whole war of the Pacific when I was there in 1923.”

  In 1912, Lieutenant Nimitz proposed marriage to Catherine Vance Freeman, daughter of a Massachusetts ship broker. “If you love me at all,” he wrote his mother, “I want you to congratulate me on becoming engaged to Catherine. . . . You may accuse me of not knowing my mind because two years ago I wanted to marry someone else. Well, two years is a long time and I am no longer the vague-minded person I was then. . . . Now, if you want to make me happy, please write this young lady a nice letter, for my sake.” They were married in April 1913. A trip home to Texas followed, in which Nimitz’s mother was charming, but his aunts were less than convivial. They murmured darkly among themselves in German, leaving Catherine with the impression that they were not entirely happy to welcome a non-German northerner into the clan. Southern identity remained strong in Texas; the Civil War was still well within the living memory of the older generation. At dinner one night, one of Nimitz’s aunts asked, “Chester, if there was another war between the North and the South, which would you fight for?” He replied, “Why, I’d stay by the Union, of course.” Catherine took it as a pledge of loyalty, not only to the nation but to her.

  They had a girl, Catherine Vance, then a son, Chester Junior, who would follow his father to the Naval Academy and then serve a career in submarines; and two more daughters, Anne Elizabeth and Mary Manson. Chester was a devoted father, making as much time for his children as his duties would permit. In the first decade of their marriage, the Nimitzes lived in Connecticut, Germany, Belgium, Brooklyn, Washington, D.C., Pearl Harbor, and Rhode Island. Catherine did not seem to mind the life of a naval family, the constant packing up and moving from one part of the world to another, the rootlessness. She and the children accepted that the navy was their home.

  DURING THE LAYOVER IN CHICAGO, Admiral Nimitz took a cab to the old Navy Pier and the Naval Reserve Midshipman’s School, where he made small talk with old acquaintances and sat for a haircut. While there, he learned that Wake Island was holding out against a new barrage of Japanese airstrikes. That afternoon he and Lieutenant Lamar were back at Dearborn Station to catch the Los Angeles–bound “Super Chief,” flagship of the Santa Fé Railway, one of the most celebrated passenger trains of those glory days of long-distance rail travel. With the help of the porters they moved into adjoining compartments in one of the plush Pullman cars. The Super Chief rolled out of Chicago in the fading afternoon light, through a gray winter landscape of stone embankments, bridges, culverts, catwalks, and rooftops, and the city dissolved gradually into the suburbs, and then into the broad plains of western Illinois—“through lovely rolling country,” wrote the admiral to Catherine, “nice farms and wide vistas and far off horizons.” Lamar poured two strong whiskeys and then both men went to bed.

  Awakening refreshed, Nimitz wrote again: “As I get more sleep and rest, things are looking up and I am sure that by the time I reach Pearl Harbor I will be able to meet the requirements of the situation.” The admiral spent long hours gazing out the window at the Great Plains, a region of farming and stock-raising, of cement plants, flour mills, grain elevators, and small towns devoted entirely to shipping livestock, grain, corn, and poultry. They passed through Kansas City, a prosperous metropolis and the hub of a dozen rail trunk lines; they continued on through grandly monotonous plains where the corn fields stretched all the way around the horizon; through Dodge City, one of the most infamous towns of the old frontier, where Wyatt Earp and Bill Tilghman had earned their names and outlaws were still buried up on Boot Hill. Crossing into southeast Colorado, a rich agricultural district of dairy farms and alfalfa fields, passengers were advised to set their watches back an hour. More farmland, miles of it: onions, cantaloupes, sugar beets, and other crops; and as the Super Chief rolled on across the plains, the snow-encrusted Rocky Mountain peaks came into view in the distant northwest. It was an arid region, and they passed over irrigation canals that carried precious water to the fields of sunflowers and alfalfa, the broad flat fields of pinto beans and sugar beets; and now, in the little towns along the way, the dwellings and buildings were built of sun-dried adobe bricks.

  Lamar had been entrusted with a canvas bag that included highly classified photos and a detailed briefing on the situation at Pearl Harbor. “Don’t let this out of your possession,” he was told, “and do not open it until you are well along the way outside of Chicago. Then show Admiral Nimitz what’s inside.” As he perused the contents, Nimitz’s mood turned dark. Though he had been briefed by Knox before leaving Washington, he had not imagined the full scale of the carnage. Lamar recalled that the photographs of the scene at Battleship Row “were simply ghastly,” and expressed better than words “the complete havoc that was Pearl Harbor.” Very few people on the American mainland had seen these images, even those at the highest levels of government. The worst was a shot of the Arizona, her great hull totally submerged and her smashed superstructure leaning drunkenly over the harbor, a pall of ugly black smoke still spewing from her remains. Nimitz had come up through the ranks of the battleship navy. Three years earlier, when he had commanded a division of battleships, the Arizona had been his flagship. He had known her well. Nimitz thought of Kimmel, whose job he had been offered earlier in the year and by a lucky dodge had turned down. “It could have happened to me,” he remarked to Lamar. “It could have happened to any commander.”

  For a man like Nimitz, who had given forty years of his life to the navy, the defeat at Pearl Harbor felt like a personal reproach. He believed in the navy, had made it his life’s work, and had never imagined it could be caught so completely unprepared by Japan or any other nation. He had kept faith with the “navy way”—the red tape, the punctilio, the stolid pace, the unbending discipline—because he believed it was all part of a purposeful design. In 1930, writing for the twenty-fifth anniversary yearbook of his class of 1905, he had written, “My life in the Navy has been very happy and I know of no other profession for which I would forsake my present one.” Those were no idle words: Nimitz could have made hi
mself a rich man by leaving the navy for the private sector. In 1915, when he was a lieutenant stationed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and living with his wife and two infants in a cramped apartment on Flatbush Avenue, a diesel engine company in St. Louis offered to hire him at an annual salary of $25,000. At the time, the navy was paying him $288 per month. “No thank you,” he told the recruiter. “I do not want to leave the navy.” “Money is no obstacle to us,” insisted the recruiter: “Write your own ticket.” “No,” Nimitz said. “I don’t want to leave the navy.”

  Chester Junior recalled another conversation in the mid-1930s, when his father confessed that he would someday like to reach the highest rank in the service—that of chief of naval operations, or CNO. Asked how he planned to achieve the goal, Nimitz said that he would do his best, as he always had, and that “he was convinced that in the navy one got what one deserved.”