Word: nimitz
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...Long Second Half. Midway it may have been, in one sense, but it was less than midway in point of time or distance. The real march to Tokyo could not begin from Midway: it had to start from Guadalcanal, and disaster nearly overtook it. Nimitz hated to relieve Vice Admiral Robert Lee Ghormley, who had burned himself out in the South Pacific, allowing himself neither exercise nor relaxation, trying to run an offensive on a shoestring (and four months ahead of schedule). But at last Nimitz sent Halsey south to take over...
...first bleak days at Pearl Harbor, one of Nimitz' main tasks was to balance the fleet, set it on course for Tokyo and keep it there. Nimitz became to the fleet what a gyrocompass is to a ship...
...never gone to Pensacola in middle age to take a course in aviation which would qualify him to wear wings. But he listened attentively while his flying officers-"Bull" Halsey, Forrest ("Fuzz") Sherman, Frederick ("Ted") Sherman, Aubrey W. ("Jake") Fitch-argued the case of the carrier-cruiser task force. Nimitz was convinced. He sent Halsey out on the hit-run raids which buoyed the fleet's morale, and the nation's, early...
...First Half. In the Coral Sea came history's first "battle beyond the horizon," in which carriers sent aerial artillery to strike at each other across hundreds of miles of water. Nimitz lost the Lexington but saved Australia and New Zealand...
...Battle of Midway, Halsey was ailing and unavailable. Nimitz sent Raymond Ames Spruance out first with two carriers, then Frank Jack Fletcher with the Yorktown. As senior, Fletcher took overall command, but when the Yorktown retired from the fight, crippled, Spruance carried on. The victory ended the Jap threat to Hawaii, the Panama Canal and the U.S. itself. It was the turning point of the Pacific war. In announcing the triumph, Nimitz punned: "We are about midway to our objective...