The Admiral Nobody Wanted

16 December 1941:  Nine days after Pearl Harbor burned, Rear Admiral Chester William Nimitz sat at his desk in the Bureau of Navigation in Washington, D.C.  The Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, summoned him. The question was simple: How soon could Nimitz travel? Nimitz answered, “It depended on where I was going.”  Knox looked at him directly. “You’re going to take command of the Pacific Fleet, and I think you will be gone a long time.”  The room went silent. Nimitz was a two-star admiral, a desk officer, and a submariner who had never commanded a battleship in his life.  President Franklin Roosevelt had just ordered him to leapfrog twenty-eight flag officers, senior to him, to take command of the most critical naval theater in American history and inherit a fleet that lay beneath oily water at the bottom of Pearl Harbor.  Admiral Harold Stark, the chief of naval operations, doubted his abilities. Admiral Ernest King, the newly appointed commander-in-chief of the United States Fleet, considered him a desk admiral more suited to running a bureaucracy than a theater of war. Even Nimitz himself had refused this exact command eleven months earlier, telling The President he was too junior and it would create substantial ill feelings throughout the Navy.  On 7 December 1941, the U.S. Navy died in two hours, and the man nobody wanted in command became the only man who could rebuild it. This is the story of how a quiet submariner from Texas inherited a shattered fleet, kept the disgraced staff everyone wanted fired, and transformed American naval warfare within six months. This is the story of December 1941, when Roosevelt chose the Admiral nobody wanted and changed the Pacific War forever.

Admiral Edward Kimmel, at Pearl Harbor, knew his career was over before the last Japanese plane disappeared over the horizon.  He stood in his submarine base office watching the Pacific Fleet burn. A spent 50 caliber machine gun bullet casing crashed through the window and struck his chest. “It left only a welt.  It would have been merciful had it killed me.” Kimmel murmured to his communications officer. Witnesses later reported he tore off his four-star shoulder boards as the attack unfolded.  This was symbolic acknowledgement that his command would be ending even as smoke still rose from Battleship Row. The official end came ten days later on 17 December 1944.

Secretary Knox flew to Pearl Harbor on 9 December 1944 to personally assess the disaster. He returned to Washington, D.C. on 14 December with a damning report for President Roosevelt.  Knox found that both Kimmel and his army counterpart, Lieutenant General Walter Short, admitted they did not expect an air attack and had taken no adequate measures to meet one, if it came. On 17 December 1941, exactly ten days after the attack, Kimmel was relieved of command. The scope of the disaster was staggering.  2,403 Americans died in two hours. The Navy suffered the greatest losses with 2,008 sailors dead and 710 wounded. The Marine Corps lost 109 killed and 69 wounded. The Army lost 218 killed and 364 wounded. 68 civilians died in the chaos.

A single ship accounted for nearly half of all deaths. USS Arizona battleship BB-39 went down with 1,177 men when an armor piercing bomb detonated her forward magazine. The battleship line was devastated. Five battleships sank outright. USS Arizona was a total loss.  USS Oklahoma BB-37 capsized after nine torpedo hits, 429 men dead. She was later refloated, but sank in undertow on 17 May 1947 and remains on the ocean floor to this day. USS California BB-44 sank after two bombs and two torpedoes. USS West Virginia BB-48 sank after seven torpedoes and two bombs. USS Nevada BB-36 was beached at Hospital Point after one torpedo and six bombs. Three more battleships, USS Pennsylvania BB-38, USS Maryland BB-46, and USS Tennessee BB-43 sustained damage but remained afloat. The former battleship, USS Utah BB-31, serving as a target ship, was lost. The minelayer USS Oglala CM-4, capsized.  Destroyers USS Cassin DD-372, USS Downes DD-375, and USS Shaw DD-373 were all heavily damaged in dry dock, were rebuilt and later returned to service.

The Roberts Commission, appointed by Roosevelt and chaired by US Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts, found Kimmel guilty of dereliction of duty and errors of judgment. Specific failures cited included “absence of long range 360° aerial reconnaissance”, “poor coordination with army General Short” and “underestimating Japanese capabilities”. Kimmel had requested 250 reconnaissance aircraft from Washington, D.C., but never received them. Critical decoded Japanese intercepts were never forwarded to Hawaii. Kimmel did not speak with Short from 3 December through 6 December despite mounting intelligence indicators.  Kimmel was demoted to his permanent two-star rank. He retired in early 1942. He spent the rest of his life seeking exoneration. In 1944 Naval Court of Inquiry and a 1946 Senate investigation cleared him of all charges. In 1999 Senate resolutions 16 and 18 had a mechanism called “Ostuous Rank Restoration” intended to restore his original four stars, but President William J. Clinton did not sign the rank restoration order.  Kimmel died on May 14, 1968 in Grotton, Connecticut. Sadly, his reputation was never officially restored.

Back to December of 1941.  The question remained, who could possibly rebuild the Pacific Fleet from this catastrophe? The Navy establishment expected Roosevelt to choose a battleship admiral, someone from the traditional path to fleet command, someone who had commanded the big guns, someone who understood the Mahanian doctrine of concentrated battle fleets as the decisive weapon of naval warfare, someone senior, someone who was tested in major commands. Roosevelt chose none of those men. Chester William Nimitz did not fit the profile of a fleet commander. His career path defied every traditional route to high command. He had never commanded a battleship, the prerequisite for this kind of advancement in pre-war Navy culture. His expertise lay in submarines. From 1909 to 1913, Nimitz commanded five different boats. By 1912, he led the entire Atlantic submarine flotilla.  He was the Navy’s foremost expert on diesel engines. He had pioneered underway replenishment techniques that would prove critical in the Pacific campaign. His only battleship flag duty was a brief stint commanding Battleship Division 1 from 1938 to 1939, flying his flag aboard the USS Arizona, which was now a tomb at the bottom of Pearl Harbor. Nimitz was a rear admiral, a two star, a desk officer working at the Bureau of Navigation, and Roosevelt ordered him to jump over twenty-eight flag officers who were senior to him.

Vice Admirals Wilson Brown, William Pye, and William Halsey were all passed over. Admiral Harold Stark, chief of naval operations, doubted Nimitz’s abilities. Admiral Ernest King, the newly appointed commander-in-chief of the United States Fleet, considered him a desk admiral more suited to running a bureaucracy than a theater of war. The skepticism was institutional and widespread. Even more remarkably, this was the second time Roosevelt had offered Nimitz the Pacific Fleet Command. In January 1941, 11 months before Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt wanted to appoint Nimitz as commander-in-chief of the Pacific Fleet. Nimitz politely declined. He explained he was too junior. He said leapfrogging twenty-eight officers would generate substantial ill will throughout the Navy. He argued it would undermine morale and discipline. Kimmel got the job instead.

After Pearl Harbor, such concerns evaporated. Roosevelt reportedly told Knox to tell Nimitz to “get the hell out to Pearl and not come back until the war is won”. The calculation was strategic and personal. Roosevelt understood that the Pacific Fleet needed something the Atlantic fleet did not require.  The Atlantic War would be convoy escort, anti-submarine warfare, and support for amphibious operations in Europe. The Pacific War would be carrier strike, submarine interdiction, and island hopping across vast distances. The battleship was dead as the primary striking arm. The carrier and submarine were ascending, and Nimitz, uniquely among senior admirals, understood both. Roosevelt also needed someone who could rebuild morale without assigning blame, someone who could work collaboratively with a shattered staff, and someone who would not spend his time settling scores or defending the indefensible.

Nimitz had a reputation throughout the Navy as a calm, steady leader. His Naval Academy yearbook called him a man of cheerful yesterdays and confident tomorrows. That temperament mattered more than traditional credentials. In December 1941, the choice was a calculated risk, but Roosevelt was betting on character, not resume. Nimitz arrived at Pearl Harbor at 07:00 on 25 December 1941. He stepped off a PB2Y Coronado flying boat near the submarine base east of Battleship Row. He wore a civilian suit.  His first words to waiting officers were telling. “What news of the relief of Wake?”  He was asking about the island garrison’s doomed defense against overwhelming Japanese forces. The question revealed his priorities, offense, not recrimination. He toured the harbor by whaleboat that morning. The scene was apocalyptic. Oil slicks covered the water. Charred wood floated among debris. The smell was overwhelming. Black oil, burned paint, and rotting flesh created what one observer called “a poisonous atmosphere.”  Capsized hulls broke the surface.  USS Arizona’s superstructure jutted from the water like a tombstone. USS Oklahoma lay on her side, her hull exposed. Salvage crews worked around the clock, cutting into compartments, searching for survivors who might still be trapped inside. The harbor was a graveyard.

That evening, Nimitz had Christmas dinner with Admiral Kimmel. The two men sat together in what must have been an extraordinarily difficult moment. Kimmel was a disgraced commander whose career was finished. Nimitz was the man replacing him, chosen by a president who had passed over dozens of more senior officers.  The conversation could have been awkward, accusatory, or cold. Instead, Nimitz told Kimmel the same thing could have happened to anyone. It was a generous sentiment from an officer who had already concluded fleet survival depended on what remained, not what was lost.

The change of command ceremony occurred on the morning of 31 December 1941. The location was symbolic and unavoidable. Every battleship in Pearl Harbor had been sunk or damaged. There was, as Nimitz noted, no other sort of deck available.  The ceremony took place aboard the submarine USS Grayling SS 209, moored at the Pearl Harbor submarine base. For a career submariner, the irony was perfect. The old battleship Navy had been destroyed. The instrument of the new Pacific War, submarines, carriers, and cryptanalytics now took center stage. Nimitz hoisted his four-star flag on Grayling’s mast. He was promoted directly from Rear Admiral to Full Admiral, skipping the rank of Vice Admiral, entirely. He took command from the acting commander and chief Pacific Fleet, Vice Admiral William Pye.

The ceremony was brief. Afterward, Nimitz’s addressed officers gathered at the torpedo building. “We have taken a tremendous wallop, but I have no doubt of the ultimate outcome.” The words were simple. The message was clear. The Pacific fleet would fight back, but Nimitz’s first great decision came not on a bridge, but in a conference room. Kimmel’s staff officers expected to be transferred in disgrace. Lieutenant Commander Edwin Leighton, the fleet intelligence officer, assumed his career was over. Captain Charles McMorris, the war plans officer, prepared for reassignment.  Every member of Kimmel’s inner circle knew they would be blamed for the disaster. They had failed to anticipate the attack. They had not positioned the fleet for defense. They had not coordinated with the army. Their professional lives, they believed, were finished.

Nimitz called them together. He spoke in his quiet, courteous Texas manner. He expressed full confidence in them, and he retained every single one. When Leighton requested the command of a destroyer, expecting his intelligence career to end in humiliation, Nimitz refused.  “I want you to be the Admiral Nagumo of my staff,” Nimitz told him. “I want your every thought, every instinct, as you believe Nagumo might have them.” Nagumo was the Japanese carrier commander who had led the Pearl Harbor strike. Nimitz was telling Leighton he wanted him to think like the enemy, to anticipate Japanese manovers, to become the fleet’s primary intelligence weapon. Leighton became the only staff officer besides the flag secretary withstanding permission to enter Nimitz’s office at any time.  He remained at Nimitz’s side for the entire war. Four years later, Nimitz wrote to him that he “was more valuable than any division of cruisers.”

This decision revealed Nimitz’s leadership philosophy. He was not interested in blame. He was interested in capability. Kimmel’s staff knew the Pacific Fleet, its ships, its personnel, its capabilities, and its limitations better than any replacements could. They understood the intelligence picture. They knew the officers commanding task forces and submarines. They had studied Japanese naval doctrine.  Firing them would satisfy public anger, but kill operational effectiveness. Keeping them sent a message to the entire fleet. “We are focused on winning, not settling scores.” Observers described Nimitz as having a sense of inner balance and calm that steadied those around him. While MacArthur was dramatic and Halsey was brilliant, Nimitz was soft-spoken and relaxed, a team player, a leader by example rather than exhortation, his approach was collaborative, not authoritarian. He listened more than he spoke. He asked questions rather than issuing pronouncements.

Officers who served under him later said they never felt intimidated, only supported.  Nimitz understood something else that December. The attack had shattered more than ships. It had shattered naval doctrine. The pre-war United States Navy followed Alfred Thayer Mahan’s principles, emphasizing concentrated battleship fleets as the decisive naval weapon. Carriers were considered auxiliaries, useful for scouting and air cover, but not capital ships capable of deciding fleet engagements. Battleships were the measure of naval power. They carried the biggest guns.  They had the thickest armor.  They were the queens of the fleet.  Carrier admirals were junior to battleship admirals.  Carrier doctrine was subordinate to battleship doctrine. 7 December ended that debate, permanently. The United States Naval Institute later noted that with the sinking of the battleships at Pearl Harbor, the big carriers perforce became the queens of the fleet. There was no choice. The battle wagons were on the bottom. The carriers were operational and they uniquely could strike at ranges beyond visual contact.  Carriers could project power across hundreds of miles. They could attack enemy fleets without ever seeing them. The old Mahanian doctrine of concentrated gun duels between opposing battle lines was obsolete. Nimitz recognized this immediately. He shifted strategic focus toward aircraft carriers and submarine warfare. These were the two arms of the fleet that remained intact after the attack on Pearl and they were the two arms that would ultimately defeat Japan. The carriers would dominate sea control and support amphibious operations. The submarines would strangle Japan’s merchant marine and cut off raw materials from the conquered territories.

Together, they would bring Japan to its knees.

Nimitz needed to restore fleet confidence, so he established four immediate priorities. First, restore confidence in the fleet itself. Second, divert Japanese strength away from the East Indies. Third, safeguard communications to Hawaii, Midway, and Australia. Fourth, hold the line against further Japanese expansion. These were defensive goals appropriate for a fleet that had just been routed, but Nimitz was already thinking offensively.

In January 1942, Nimitz proposed carrier raids against Japanese bases.  Many officers considered the idea too risky. The fleet was still recovering. The carriers were precious few. Losing even one would be catastrophic. It was better to husband resources, they argued, and wait for reinforcements.  Despite this over-cautious attitude, Vice Admiral Halsey volunteered to strike the Marshall Islands. It was a courageous reaction that permanently endeared him to his commander-in-chief. The raids began 1 February 1942. They were the Pacific Fleet’s first offensive operations after the rout at Pearl. The raids achieved limited material damage, but tremendous psychological good. The fleet was fighting back, yet the strategic picture remained grim.  Even as Nimitz rebuilt morale and planned counter strikes, he inherited a fleet with almost no offensive capability. The battleship line was shattered. Of eight battleships at Pearl on 7 December, five were sunk and three damaged. Only the three damaged ships would return to service quickly, USS Nevada, USS Tennessee and USS Pennsylvania. USS California and USS West Virginia which were sunk, would eventually be refloated, repaired, and returned to service. They participated in the battle of Surigao Strait in October 1944, but in December 1941, they were useless hulks.

The offensive capability that remained was fragile. Three aircraft carriers constituted the Pacific Fleet’s entire striking power. USS Enterprise, USS Lexington, and USS Saratoga. All three had been absent on 7 December.  USS Enterprise was 215 miles West of Oahu, returning from Wake Island. USS Lexington was 500 miles Southeast of Midway, delivering aircraft. USS Saratoga was in San Diego collecting her air group. Their absence was pure fortune. Had even one been in harbor during the attack, the strategic situation would have been far worse.

The submarine force remained intact. Thiry-three submarines assigned to Command Submarine Force Pacific were untouched. The submarine base itself was undamaged. This would prove critically important. American submarines would eventually sink more than half of Japan’s merchant tonnage, crippling the Empire’s ability to import oil, steel, and food from conquered territories. In December 1941, however, submarine doctrine was still flawed. Torpedoes were unreliable. The Mark XIV torpedo had depth control problems and a defective magnetic detonator.  Skippers were too cautious because they were trained in peacetime safety protocols rather than aggressive wartime tactics.  Many returned from patrols having fired few torpedoes. Tactics were underdeveloped, focused on submerged attacks when surface night attacks would prove far more effective. Nimitz would fix these problems, but it would take time. He replaced cautious commanders with aggressive ones. He pushed for torpedo improvements. He encouraged night surface attacks.

By 1943, American submarines were strangling Japan. The infrastructure that survived was equally important. The Japanese ignored Pearl Harbor’s oil tank farms. 4.5 million barrels of fuel sat in storage untouched.  Had the Japanese destroyed that oil, Nimitz later observed, it would have prolonged the war another two years. The Naval Yard repair facilities were also undamaged. These shops allowed salvage crews to refloat and repair damaged ships. Without them, every damaged vessel would have required towing to the West Coast. The repair capabilities at Pearl Harbor were instrumental in returning the fleet to fighting strength, but morale remained the greatest challenge.

The fleet had been caught unprepared. The attack was a humiliation.  Every sailor, every officer knew they had been surprised and beaten. Some questioned whether they could compete with the Japanese, whose pilots had demonstrated skill and audacity at Pearl Harbor. Others wondered if the war was already lost, if Japan’s conquest of the Western Pacific was irreversible. Nimitz needed to change that mindset. He did it through steady leadership and small victories. The carrier raids in early 1942 demonstrated the fleet could strike back. Halsey’s strikes against the Marshall and Gilbert Islands in February 1942 showed American carriers could penetrate Japanese defensive zones.

The Doolittle raid in April, launching Army B-25 bombers from USS Hornet to strike Tokyo, had minimal tactical effect but enormous psychological impact. It forced Japan to keep fighters home for defense. It demonstrated American audacity. The Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942, though tactically ambiguous with both sides losing carriers, was strategically decisive. It was the first time the Japanese advance was checked. The invasion of Port Moresby was cancelled. Australia remained secure and then came Midway in June 1942.

Nimitz, relying on intelligence from Leighton and cryptanalysts who had broken Japanese naval codes, knew the Japanese were planning to attack Midway Island. He knew the date, the direction, even the call signs. He positioned his three carriers, USS Enterprise, USS Hornet, and USS Yorktown, northeast of Midway in ambush positions. When the Japanese fleet approached on 4 June, American dive bombers caught three Japanese carriers, Akagi, Kaga, and Sōryū, with their decks full of armed and fueled aircraft. The bombs ignited catastrophic fires.  All three carriers sank. A fourth carrier, Hiryu, was sunk later that day. Japan lost four fleet carriers, their most experienced pilots, and their offensive capability in the Pacific. The balance of power had shifted, permanently.

Six months after taking command, Nimitz had turned disaster into strategic advantage. The quiet submariner from Texas, whom nobody wanted, had become the architect of victory. The staff everyone expected him to fire, became the team that won the war in The Pacific. The carriers that survived 7 December, completely by luck, became the instrument that destroyed Japanese naval power.  The doctrine that died at Pearl Harbor, the belief in battleship supremacy, gave way to the warfare of the future-carriers, submarines, intelligence, and logistics. December 1941 was the Pacific Fleet’s darkest hour, but it was also the moment American naval warfare was reborn. The battleship navy sank beneath oily waters. A submariner stood on a submarine’s deck and hoisted the flag of a fleet transformed. Roosevelt had chosen the admiral nobody wanted, and in doing so, he chose exactly the man the Pacific needed.