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“I Will be Lucky to Last Six Months”: Chester Nimitz in 1942
Admiral Chester W. Nimitz was thrust into the command of the Pacific Fleet at a perilous moment. He took up the task on the last day of 1941 when the wreckage of the battleship fleet was still smoldering from the Japanese attack three weeks before. From the start, he was under pressure from a public that was eager for revenge, a boss (Ernest J. King) who badgered him to initiate an immediate offensive, and an administration that was committed to fighting “Germany First.” The pressures on him were crushing. In March, he wrote his wife that it was possible he would soon be replaced.
Instead, Nimitz quietly and efficiently re-built the fleet, fended off unrealistic demands of his superiors, adjudicated the quarrels of his subordinates, and employed his scarce resources to keep the Japanese off balance. He acted boldly to defend Midway and sustained the Marines’ precarious hold on their beachhead on Guadalcanal. Throughout the perilous year of 1942, he was a model of effective theater command.
Speaker Bio:
Craig L. Symonds is professor of history emeritus at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where he taught for thirty years and served as History Department Chair. From 2017 to 2020 he was the Ernest J. King Distinguished Professor of Maritime History at the U.S. Naval War College, in Newport, RI. He is a four-time recipient of the Federal Government’s Superior Civilian Service Medal, and in 2014 he received the Dudley W. Knox Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Naval Historical Foundation. He is a Director Emeritus of the Admiral Nimitz Foundation.
Symonds is the author of seventeen books, including Lincoln and His Admirals, which won the 2009 Lincoln Prize, and Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles that Shaped American History (2005) which won the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Prize for Naval History. His books on World War II include The Battle of Midway (2011), Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings (2014), and World War II at Sea: A Global History (2018). His newest book is Nimitz at War: Command Leadership from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay (2022).
Special Thanks to Symposium Donors and Sponsors:
Humanities for Texas
Fischer and Weiser
Hilmy Cellars
and several private donors.
Book: Nimitz at War
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This is a recording from the 35th Annual Admiral Nimitz Symposium: 2022.
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