From America's preeminent naval historian, the first full-length
portrait in over fifty years of the man who won the war in the
Pacific in World War Two-"destined," says Andrew Roberts, "to be
the defining life of Chester Nimitz for a long time to come." Only
days after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, President Franklin
D. Roosevelt tapped Chester W. Nimitz to assume command of the
Pacific Fleet. Nimitz was not the most senior candidate available,
and some, including his new boss, U.S. Navy Admiral Ernest J. King,
considered him a "desk admiral," more suited to running a
bureaucracy than a theater of war. Yet FDR's selection proved
nothing less than inspired. From the precarious early months of the
war after December 7th 1941 to the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay
nearly four years later, Nimitz transformed the devastated and
dispirited Pacific fleet into the most powerful and commanding
naval force in history. From the start, the pressures on Nimitz
were crushing. Facing demands from Washington to mount an early
offensive, he had first to revive the depressed morale of the
thousands of sailors, soldiers, and Marines who served under him.
He had to corral independent-minded subordinates-including Admiral
Bill "Bull" Halsey and General Holland "Howlin' Mad" Smith-and keep
them focused on shared objectives. He had to maintain a
sometimes-fraught relationship with his Army counterpart Douglas
MacArthur, and cope with his superiors, including the formidably
prickly King and the inscrutable FDR. He had to navigate the
expectations of a nation impatient for revenge and eventual
victory. And of course, he also confronted a formidable and
implacable enemy in the Imperial Japanese Navy, which, until the
Battle of Midway, had the run of the Pacific. Craig Symonds' Nimitz
at War reveals how the quiet man from the Hill Country of Texas
eventually surmounted all of these challenges. Using Nimitz's
headquarters-the eye of the hurricane-as his vantage point, Symonds
covers all the major campaigns in the Pacific from Guadalcanal to
Okinawa. He captures Nimitz's composure, discipline, homespun
wisdom, and most of all his uncanny sense of when to assert
authority and when to pull back. In retrospect it is difficult to
imagine anyone else accomplishing what Nimitz did. As Symonds'
absorbing, dynamic, and authoritative portrait reveals, it required
qualities of leadership exhibited by few other commanders in
history, qualities that are enduringly and even poignantly relevant
to our own moment.
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