Early career Nimitz joined the
battleship USS Ohio (BB-12) in
San Francisco, and cruised on her to the Far East. In September 1906, he was transferred to the cruiser ; on January 31, 1907, after the two years at sea as a
warrant officer then required by law, Nimitz was commissioned as an
ensign. Remaining on Asiatic Station in 1907, he successively served on the
gunboat ,
destroyer , and cruiser . The destroyer
Decatur ran aground on a mud bank in the Philippines on July 7, 1908, while under the command of Ensign Nimitz. The incident was the result of a navigational error. Nimitz had failed to check the harbor's tide tables and tried Batangas' harbor when the water level was low, leaving
Decatur stuck until the tide rose again the next morning, and she was pulled free by a small steamer. Nimitz returned to the United States on board
USS Ranger when that vessel was converted to a
school ship, and in January 1909, began instruction in the First Submarine Flotilla. In May of that year, he was given command of the flotilla, with additional duty in command of , later renamed
A-1. Nimitz was promoted directly from ensign to lieutenant in January 1910. He commanded (later renamed
C-5) when that submarine was commissioned on 2 February 1910, and on 18 November 1910, assumed command of (later renamed
D-1).
World War I In the summer of 1913, Nimitz (who spoke fluent German) studied engines at the
Maschinenfabrik-Augsburg-Nürnberg (M.A.N.) diesel engine plants in
Nuremberg, Germany, and
Ghent, Belgium. Returning to the
New York Navy Yard, he became
executive and engineer officer of
Maumee at her
commissioning on October 23, 1916. After the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, Nimitz was chief engineer of
Maumee while the vessel served as a refueling ship for the first squadron of US Navy destroyers to cross the Atlantic, to take part in the war. Under his supervision,
Maumee conducted the first-ever
underway refuelings. On August 10, 1917, Nimitz became aide to Rear Admiral
Samuel S. Robison, Commander, Submarine Force, US Atlantic Fleet (
ComSubLant). On February 6, 1918, Nimitz was appointed chief of staff and was awarded a
Letter of Commendation for meritorious service as COMSUBLANT's chief of staff. On 16 September, he reported to the office of the Chief of Naval Operations, and on October 25 was given additional duty as senior member, Board of Submarine Design.
Interwar Period From May 1919 to June 1920, Nimitz served as executive officer of the battleship . He then commanded the cruiser with additional duty in command of
Submarine Division 14, based at
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Nimitz, assisted by four earnest
Chief Petty Officers, supervised the construction of
Submarine Base Pearl Harbor on a triangle-shaped, overgrown piece of land at the juncture of Southeast Loch and Quarry Loch, and served as the base's first commanding officer. During this tour, he also conducted an investigation into the
R-14 sailing incident. Nimitz's handling of the disciplinary action in the aftermath of the investigation was considered a model of even-handed fairness, cementing his reputation as a solid and capable leader. Returning to the mainland in the summer of 1922, Nimitz studied at the
Naval War College,
Newport, Rhode Island. in 1927. ADM
Louis R. de Steiguer, Commander in Chief,
Battle Fleet;
William Wallace Campbell, President, U.C. Berkeley; RADM
Harris Laning, Chief of Staff, Battle Fleet; COL Robert O. Van Horn, Army ROTC Unit; CAPT
William D. Puleston, Asst Chief of Staff, Battle Fleet; CAPT Chester Nimitz, Naval ROTC UnitIn June 1923, Nimitz became aide and assistant chief of staff to the Commander,
Battle Fleet, and later to the Commander in Chief,
United States Fleet. In August 1926, he went to the
University of California, Berkeley, where he established one of the first
Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps units and successfully advocated for the program's expansion. Nimitz lost part of a finger in an accident with a diesel engine, saving the rest of it only when the machine briefly jammed against his
Annapolis ring. In June 1929, Nimitz took command of Submarine Division 20. In June 1931, he assumed command of the
destroyer tender and the destroyers out of commission at
San Diego, California. In October 1933, Nimitz took command of the cruiser and deployed to the
Far East, where in December,
Augusta became the
flagship of the
Asiatic Fleet. While in command of the
Augusta, his legal aide was
Chesty Puller. In April 1935, Nimitz returned home for three years as assistant chief of the Bureau of Navigation, before becoming commander, Cruiser Division 2, Battle Force. In September 1938, Nimitz took command of Battleship Division 1, Battle Force. During this time, he conducted experiments in the underway refueling of large ships which would prove a key element in the Navy's success in the war to come. "Tests were planned for the spring of 1939 [June 1939] using elements of the fleet left on the West Coast while the rest of the fleet was in the Caribbean participating in
Fleet Problem XX. Nimitz was scheduled to remain on the West Coast aboard his flagship the . The aircraft carrier , the heavy cruisers and , and the light cruiser would also be left behind. These ships, with their escorts and at least one oiler, would constitute Task Force 7. Nimitz, as senior officer present, would be in command." On June 15, 1939, Nimitz was appointed chief of the Bureau of Navigation. From 1940 to 1941, he served as president of the Army Navy Country Club, in Arlington, Virginia.
World War II on
Doris "Dorie" Miller in a ceremony onboard in May 1942 ,
Guadalcanal, 30 September 1942 aboard in Tokyo Bay in September 1945: Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, representing the United States, signs the
instrument of surrender. Ten days after the
attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Rear Admiral Nimitz was selected by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt to be the commander-in-chief of the
United States Pacific Fleet (CINCPACFLT). Nimitz immediately departed Washington for Hawaii and took command in a ceremony on the top deck of the submarine . He was promoted to the rank of
admiral, effective December 31, 1941, upon assuming command. The change of command ceremony would normally have taken place aboard a battleship, but every battleship in Pearl Harbor had been either sunk or damaged during the attack. Assuming command at the most critical period of the war in the Pacific, Admiral Nimitz organized his forces to halt the Japanese advance, despite the shortage of ships, planes, and supplies. Nimitz had a significant advantage in that the United States had cracked the Japanese diplomatic code and had made progress on the
naval code JN-25. The Japanese had kept radio silence before the attack on Pearl Harbor, although events were then moving so rapidly that they had to rely on coded radio messages they did not realize were being read in Hawaii. On March 24, 1942, the newly formed US-British
Combined Chiefs of Staff issued a directive designating the
Pacific theater an area of American strategic responsibility. Six days later, the US
Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) divided the theater into three areas: the
Pacific Ocean Areas, the
Southwest Pacific Area (commanded by General
Douglas MacArthur), and the
Southeast Pacific Area. The JCS designated Nimitz as "Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas", with operational control over all
Allied units (air, land, and sea) in that area. Nimitz, in Hawaii, and his superior Admiral
Ernest King, the Chief of Naval Operations, in Washington, rejected the plan of General Douglas MacArthur to advance on Japan through New Guinea and the Philippines and Formosa. Instead, they proposed an
island-hopping plan that would allow them to bypass most of the Japanese strength in the Central Pacific until they reached Okinawa. President Roosevelt compromised, giving both MacArthur and Nimitz their own theaters. The two Pacific theaters were favored, to the dismay of generals
George Marshall and
Dwight Eisenhower, who favored a Germany-first strategy. King and Nimitz provided MacArthur with some naval forces but kept most of the carriers. However, when the time came to plan an invasion of Japan, MacArthur was given overall command. Nimitz faced superior Japanese forces at the crucial defensive actions of the
Battle of the Coral Sea and the
Battle of Midway. The Battle of the Coral Sea, while a loss in terms of total damage suffered, has been described as resulting in the strategic success of turning back an apparent Japanese invasion of
Port Moresby on the island of New Guinea. Two Japanese carriers were temporarily taken out of action in the battle, which would deprive the Japanese of their use in the Midway operation that shortly followed. The Navy's intelligence team reasoned that the Japanese would be attacking Midway, so Nimitz moved all his available forces to the defense. The severe losses in Japanese carriers at Midway affected the balance of naval air power during the remainder of 1942 and were crucial in neutralizing Japanese offensive threats in the South Pacific. Naval engagements during the
Battle of Guadalcanal left both forces severely depleted. However, with the allied advantage in land-based air-power, the results were sufficient to secure Guadalcanal. The US and allied forces then undertook to neutralize remaining Japanese offensive threats with the
Solomon Islands campaign and the
New Guinea campaign, while building capabilities for major fleet actions. In 1943, Midway became a forward submarine base, greatly enhancing US capabilities against Japanese shipping. In terms of combat, 1943 was a relatively quiet year, but it proved decisive inasmuch as Nimitz gained the
materiel and manpower needed to launch major fleet offensives to destroy Japanese power in the central Pacific region. This drive opened with the
Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign from November 1943 to February 1944, followed by the destruction of the strategic Japanese base at
Truk Lagoon, and the Marianas campaign that brought the Japanese homeland within range of new strategic bombers. Nimitz's forces inflicted a decisive defeat on the Japanese fleet in the
Battle of the Philippine Sea (June 19–20, 1944), which allowed the capture of
Saipan,
Guam, and
Tinian. His Fleet Forces isolated enemy-held bastions on the central and eastern
Caroline Islands and secured in quick succession
Peleliu,
Angaur, and
Ulithi. In the Philippines, his ships destroyed much of the remaining Japanese naval power at the
Battle of Leyte Gulf, that lasted from October 24 to 26, 1944. With the loss of the Philippines, Japan's energy supply routes from Indonesia came under direct threat, crippling their war effort. decorating Admiral Nimitz with a
Gold Star on 5 October 1945 By act of Congress, passed on December 14, 1944, the rank of
fleet admiral – the highest rank in the Navy – was established. The next day, President Franklin Roosevelt appointed Nimitz to that rank. Nimitz took the oath of that office on December 19. In January 1945, Nimitz moved the headquarters of the Pacific Fleet forward from Pearl Harbor to Guam for the remainder of the war. Nimitz's wife remained in the continental United States for the duration of the war and did not join her husband in Hawaii or Guam. In 1945, Nimitz's forces launched successful amphibious assaults on
Iwo Jima and
Okinawa and his carriers raided the home waters of Japan. In addition, Nimitz also arranged for the Army Air Force to mine the Japanese ports and waterways by air with
B-29 Superfortresses in a successful mission called
Operation Starvation, which severely interrupted Japanese logistics. On September 2, 1945, Nimitz signed as representative of the United States when
Japan formally surrendered on board in
Tokyo Bay. On October 5, 1945, which had been officially designated as "Nimitz Day" in
Washington, D.C., Nimitz was personally presented a second
Gold Star for the third award of the
Navy Distinguished Service Medal by President
Harry S. Truman "for exceptionally meritorious service as Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet and Pacific Ocean Areas, from June 1944 to August 1945".
Post war On November 26, 1945, Nimitz's nomination as
Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) was confirmed by the US Senate, and on December 15, he relieved Fleet Admiral
Ernest J. King. Nimitz had assured the President that he was willing to serve as the CNO for one two-year term, but no longer. Nimitz tackled the difficult task of reducing the most powerful navy in the world to a fraction of its war-time strength while establishing and overseeing active and reserve fleets with the strength and readiness required to support national policy. For the postwar trial of German Grand Admiral
Karl Dönitz at the
Nuremberg Trials in 1946, Nimitz furnished an
affidavit in support of the practice of
unrestricted submarine warfare, a practice that he himself had employed throughout the war in the Pacific. This evidence is widely credited as a reason why Dönitz was sentenced to only 10 years of imprisonment. Nimitz
endorsed an entirely new course for the US Navy's future by way of supporting then-Captain
Hyman G. Rickover's chain-of-command-circumventing proposal in 1947 to build , the world's first nuclear-powered vessel. As is noted at a display at the Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg, Texas: "Nimitz's greatest legacy as CNO is arguably his support of Admiral Hyman Rickover's effort to convert the submarine fleet from diesel to nuclear propulsion".
Inactive duty as a fleet admiral Nimitz retired from office as CNO on December 15, 1947, and received a third Gold Star in lieu of a fourth Navy Distinguished Service Medal. However, since the rank of fleet admiral is a lifetime appointment, he remained on active duty for the rest of his life, with full pay and benefits. Nimitz and his wife, Catherine, moved to
Berkeley, California. After suffering a serious fall in 1964, he and Catherine moved to US Naval quarters on
Yerba Buena Island in the
San Francisco Bay. In San Francisco, Nimitz served in the mostly ceremonial post as a special assistant to the Secretary of the Navy in the Western Sea Frontier. He worked to help restore goodwill with Japan after World War II by helping to raise funds for the restoration of the Japanese Imperial Navy battleship , Admiral
Heihachiro Togo's flagship at the
Battle of Tsushima in 1905. From 1949 to 1953, Nimitz served as UN-appointed plebiscite administrator for
Jammu and Kashmir. His proposed role as administrator was accepted by Pakistan but rejected by India. Nimitz became a member of the
Bohemian Club of San Francisco. In 1948, he sponsored a Bohemian dinner in honor of US Army General
Mark Clark, known for his campaigns in North Africa and Italy. Nimitz served as a regent of the
University of California from 1948 to 1956, where he had formerly been a faculty member as a professor of naval science for the
Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps program. Nimitz was honored on October 17, 1964, by the University of California on Nimitz Day. ==Personal life==