The Admiral Nobody Wanted — Why Roosevelt Chose Nimitz After Pearl Harbor

The Admiral Nobody Wanted — Why Roosevelt Chose Nimitz After Pearl Harbor

December 16, 1941, 9 days after Pearl Harbor burned, Rear Admiral Chester Nimtt sat at his desk in the Bureau of Navigation in Washington. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox summoned him. The question was simple. How soon could Nimmitz travel? Nimttz answered, “It depended on where he was going.” Nox 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. Nimttz was a two-star admiral, a desk officer, a submariner who had never commanded a battleship in his life. And Franklin Roosevelt had just ordered him to leapfrog 28 flag officers senior to him to take command of the most critical naval theater in American history to inherit a fleet that lay beneath oily water at the bottom of Pearl Harbor.

The chief of naval operations doubted his abilities. The newly appointed commanderin-chief of the United States fleet called him a desk admiral, more suited to running a bureaucracy than a theater of war. Even Nimitz himself had refused this exact command 10 months earlier, telling Roosevelt he was too junior and it would create substantial ill.

But on December 7, 1941, the battleship Navy died in 2 hours, and the man nobody wanted 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 in 6 months.

This is the story of December 1941. When Roosevelt chose the Admiral nobody wanted and changed the Pacific War forever, Admiral husband Edward Kimmel 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 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 fourstar shoulderboards as the attack unfolded. A symbolic acknowledgement that his command was ending even as smoke still rose from battleship row. The official end came 10 days later.

Secretary Knox flew to Pearl Harbor on December 9 to personally assess the disaster. He returned to Washington on December 14 with a damning report for President Roosevelt. Nox 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 December 17, 1941, exactly 10 days after the attack, Kimmel was relieved of command. The scope of the disaster was staggering. 2,43 Americans died in 2 hours. The Navy suffered the greatest losses. 2008 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 number 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. Arizona was a total loss. Oklahoma capsized after nine torpedo hits, 429 men dead.

She was later refloated but sank undertoe in 1947 and remains on the ocean floor to this day. California sank after two bombs and two torpedoes. West Virginia sank after seven torpedoes and two bombs. Nevada was beached at hospital point after one torpedo and six bombs. Three more battleships, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Tennessee sustained damage but remained afloat.

The former battleship Utah serving as a target ship was lost. The mine layer Aglala capsized. Destroyers Cassin, Downs, and Shaw were destroyed in dry dock. The Roberts Commission, appointed by Roosevelt and chaired by Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts, found Kimmel guilty of dereliction of duty and errors of judgment.

Specific failures cited included absence of longrange 360° aerial reconnaissance, poor coordination with General Short and underestimating Japanese capabilities. Kimmel had requested 250 reconnaissance aircraft from Washington, but never received them. Crucially, decoded Japanese intercepts were never forwarded to Hawaii.

Kimmel did not speak with Short from December 3 through December 6 despite mounting intelligence indicators. Kimmel reverted to his permanent two-star rank. He retired in early 1942. He spent the rest of his life seeking exoneration. A 1944 Naval Court of Inquiry largely cleared him. A 1999 Senate resolution called forostuous rank restoration.

No president has ever acted on it. Kimmel died on May 14, 1968 in Grotton, Connecticut. His reputation was never officially restored. But 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 thebig guns, someone who understood the Mahanian doctrine of concentrated battle fleets as the decisive weapon of naval warfare, someone senior, someone tested

in major commands. Roosevelt chose none of those men. Chester William Nimttz 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 advancement in pre-war Navy culture. His expertise lay in submarines.

From 1909 to 1913, he 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 Arizona, now a tomb at the bottom of Pearl Harbor. Nimttz was a rear admiral, a two star, a desk officer working at the Bureau of Navigation, and Roosevelt ordered him to jump over 28 flag officers senior to him. Vice Admirals Wilson Brown, William Pi, and William Holsey were all passed over. Admiral Harold Stark, chief of naval operations, doubted Nimttz’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 Nimttz as commander-in-chief Pacific Fleet. Nimttz politely declined. He explained he was too junior. He said leaprogging 50 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 Nox to tell Nimttz 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. The Atlantic War would be convoy escort, anti-ubmarine warfare, and supporting 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 ascendant, and Nimmits, 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, someone who would not spend his time settling scores or defending the indefensible.

Nimttz 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.

Nimttz arrived at Pearl Harbor at 7:00 in the morning on Christmas Day 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. Arizona’s superructure jutted from the water like a tombstone. 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, Nimmits 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. Nimmitz 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 the fleet survival depended on what remained, not what was lost. The change of command ceremony occurred on the morning of December 31, 1941. The location was symbolic and unavoidable. Every battleship in Pearl Harbor had been sunk or damaged.

There was, as Nimitz Riley noted, no other sort of deck available. So, the ceremonytook place aboard the submarine USS Graing, hull number SS 209, mored at the Pearl Harbor submarine base. For a career submarina, the irony was perfect. The old battleship Navy had been destroyed. The instrument of the new Pacific War, submarines, carriers, and crypton analysis now took center stage.

Nimttz hoisted his four-star flag on Gring’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 Pi. The ceremony was brief. Afterward, Nimtt’s addressed officers gathered at the torpedo building.

We have taken a tremendous wallup, 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. Nimmits 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 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. Nimttz was telling Leighton he wanted him to think like the enemy, to anticipate Japanese moves, 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 Nimttz’s side for the entire war. Four years later, Nimttz 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 operational effectiveness. Keeping them sent a message to the entire fleet. We are focused on winning, not settling scores.

Observers described Nimttz as having a sense of inner balance and calm that steadied those around him. While MacArthur was dramatic and Hollyy brulliant, Nimttz 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. But Nimttz understood something else that December. The attack had shattered more than ships. It had shattered doctrine. The pre-war United States Navy followed Alfred the 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. December 7 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 the carriers uniquely could strike at ranges beyond visual contact. They 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. Nimttz 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 December 7, 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 rawmaterials from the conquered territories.

Together, they would bring Japan to its knees. But first, Nimitz needed to restore confidence. 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 mowled, 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. Better to husband resources, they argued, and wait for reinforcements. But Vice Admiral Holsey volunteered to strike the Marshall Islands. It was a courageous reaction that permanently endeared him to his commander-in-chief. The raids began on February 1, 1942. They were the Pacific Fleet’s first offensive operations.

They did limited material damage, but tremendous psychological good. The fleet was fighting back, yet the strategic picture remained grim. Even as Nimits 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 Harbor on December the 7, five were sunk and three damaged.

Only the three damaged ships would return to service quickly. California and West Virginia would eventually be refloated, repaired, and returned to service. They participated in the battle of Sural 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 December 7. Enterprise was 215 mi west of Oahu, returning from Wake Island. Lexington was 500 m southeast of Midway delivering aircraft. Saratoga was in San Diego collecting her air groupoup.

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. 33 submarines assigned to command a 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. But in December 1941, submarine doctrine was still flawed. Torpedoes were unreliable. The Mark1 14 torpedo had depth control problems and a defective magnetic exploder.

Skippers were too cautious, trained in peaceime safety protocols rather than aggressive wartime tactics. Many returned from patrols having fired few torpedoes. Tactics were underdeveloped, focused on submerged attacks when surface knight attacks would prove far more effective. Nimmits 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, Nimmits later observed, it would have prolonged the war another 2 years. The Navyyard repair facilities were also undamaged. These shops allowed salvage crews to reflat 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. Nimttz 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. Hollyy’s strikes against the Marshall and Gilbert Islands in February showed American carriers could penetrate Japanese defensive zones.

The dittle 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 theJapanese advance was checked.

The invasion of Port Moresby was cancelled. Australia remained secure and then came midway in June 1942. Nimmits, relying on intelligence from Leighton and Cryptonalists 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, Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown, northeast of Midway in ambush positions. When the Japanese fleet approached on June 4, American dive bombers caught three Japanese carriers, a Kagi, Kirga, and Soryu, 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 shifted permanently. 6 months after taking command, Nimttz 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. The carriers that survived December 7 by luck, became the instrument that destroyed Japanese naval power. And 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.