Word: nimitz
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...Your quietly eloquent eulogy for Fleet Admiral Nimitz [March 4] bespeaks the man. Millions of Americans, even several hundred thousand of us who served in the Pacific Fleet, never set eyes upon him; rather, we felt and knew his presence. That was the genesis of our confidence. Sailor, rest your...
...curiously prophetic bearing on the sailor who was to lead his nation out of the greatest naval disaster in its history. "He is a man," it had said, "of cheerful yesterdays and confident tomorrows." So he proved to be. As new Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, Nimitz set out first to restore the Navy's shattered nerve-and then to restore the Navy. "I have complete confidence in you men," he briskly assured the ashen-faced staff at Pearl Harbor. "We've taken a terrific wallop, but I have no doubts as to the ultimate outcome...
...then, Nimitz was ready. From a reading of the Japanese "Purple Code," deciphered by Army cryptographers nearly a year before, naval intelligence knew an attack was planned at invasion point "AF." Washington thought that "AF" was Hawaii itself. Nimitz was certain it was Midway. He bolstered the little island with every plane he could spare, ordered nearly every ship in his command to rendezvous just outside what he thought would be the farthest radius of Japanese air patrols. Nimitz urged on his commanders the same policy principle of "calculated risk" that he himself had followed in ordering his ships...
Unmentionable Word. His gamble paid off. In the resulting battle, the enemy lost four irreplaceable carriers and the momentum that had propelled him from victory to victory. For the Japanese, Midway became an unmentionable word. Nimitz indulged himself in a rare pun: "Perhaps we will be forgiven if we claim that we are about midway to our objective." Though more than three years of hard, bitter fighting remained, that single, three-day battle marked the turning point of the Pacific war, the beginning of the end of Japanese ambitions...
Died. Fleet Admiral Chester William Nimitz, 80, who led history's greatest armada to victory in the Pacific; of pneumonia; on Yerba Buena Island, in San Francisco Bay (see THE NATION...