[QuadList] Fwd: Stuff "Interesting facts on our history"

[W4wj at aol.com]

George...
 
Nice to see this.  I live in the hometown of Chester Nimitz and 
the home of the National Museum of the Pacific War.
 
73,   

Don Murray, W4WJ


Retired from 40 years of  Miami Television Engineering
35+ years @ NBC O&O WTVJ

Now in  Fredericksburg, TX 


 
In a message dated 6/20/2011 10:26:10 A.M. Central Daylight Time,  
georgenann at aol.com writes:

Ted,
 
Thought you might like to see this, if you haven't already.
 
George Keller




Sent:  Sun, Jun 19, 2011 10:38 pm
Subject: Stuff "Interesting facts on our  history"


 
Pearl  Harbor: A Very interesting observation and perspective on our  
history


Chester Nimitz Junior, (son of WW2 Fleet Admiral Nimitz) himself a rear  
Admiral, became President of The Perkin-Elmer Corporation upon retiring from  
the Navy and my boss at our home offices in Norwalk, CT. Cursed like the  
salty sailor he was and told tall tales about getting busted for drag-racing  
his Nuclear Submarine at maximum speed against other U.S. and British  
submarines on the Thames River giving the very proper British Navy fits. I  
shuddered every time I had to bring a female scientist client in to meet  him. 
 
His Naval career in subs was served totally in the absence of the  fairer 
sex, and I never knew what was
going to come out of his mouth next. A great Boss who always treated me  
right and sent me a glowing
letter of commendation which I still cherish. Wish we had more like him  
now!
Spence

 
 

 


Very  interesting observation!


 
 
 
Tour  boats ferry people out to the USS  Arizona Memorial  in  Hawaii every 
 thirty minutes.  We just  missed a ferry and had to wait thirty  minutes.  
I went into a  small gift shop to kill time.  In  the gift shop, I 
purchased  a small book entitled, "Reflections  on  Pearl Harbor " by  Admiral  
Chester Nimitz.

Sunday,   December 7th, 1941--Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a 
concert   in  Washington  D.C.     He was paged and told there was a phone  call 
for him.  When he  answered the phone, it was President  Franklin Delano 
Roosevelt on the  phone.  He told Admiral  Nimitz that he (Nimitz) would now be 
the  Commander of the Pacific  Fleet.

Admiral   Nimitz flew  to  Hawaii to assume  command of the Pacific  Fleet. 
 He landed  at  Pearl Harbor on  Christmas Eve,  1941.  There was such a 
spirit of despair,  dejection and  defeat--you would have thought the Japanese 
had already  won the  war.  On Christmas Day, 1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a 
 boat  tour of the destruction wrought  on  Pearl Harbor by  the  Japanese. 
 Big sunken battleships and navy vessels   cluttered the waters every where 
you looked. As the tour boat  returned  to dock, the young helmsman of the 
boat asked, "Well  Admiral, what do  you think after seeing all this  
destruction?"  Admiral Nimitz's  reply shocked everyone within  the sound of his 
voice.  Admiral  Nimitz said, "The  Japanese  made three of the biggest 
mistakes an attack force could ever  make  or God was taking care  of  America .  
Which do you think it   was?"  Shocked and surprised, the young helmsman 
asked,  "What  do mean by saying the Japanese made the three biggest mistakes  
an  attack force ever made?"

Nimitz   explained.  Mistake number one: the Japanese  attacked on  Sunday 
morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of those  ships were  ashore on 
leave. If those same ships had been lured to sea  and  been sunk--we would have 
lost 38,000 men instead of   3,800. 

Mistake  number two: when the  Japanese saw all those battleships lined in 
a  row, they got so  carried away sinking those battleships, they never  
once bombed our  dry docks opposite those ships.  If they had  destroyed our 
dry docks, we  would have had to tow everyone of those  ships to  America to  
be  repaired.  As it is now, the ships are in shallow water  and  can be 
raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and  we  can have them 
repaired and at sea by the time we could have  towed  them to  America . And  I 
already have crews ashore anxious to man  those  ships. 

Mistake  number three: every drop of fuel  in the Pacific theater of war is 
in  top of the ground storage  tanks five miles away over that hill.   One 
attack plane could  have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel  supply. 
  That's why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest  mistakes  an 
attack force could make or God was taking care  of America .  

I've  never  forgotten what I read in that little book.  It is still  an  
inspiration as I reflect upon it. In jest, I might suggest  that  because 
Admiral Nimitz was a Texan, born and raised  in   Fredricksburg ,  Texas --he  
was a born optimist.  But anyway  you look at it--Admiral Nimitz  was able 
to see a silver lining in  a situation and circumstance where  everyone else 
saw only despair  and defeatism. President Roosevelt had  chosen the right 
man for  the right job.  We desperately needed a  leader that could see  
silver linings in the midst of the clouds of  dejection, despair  and defeat.




















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