Really interesting, and I never knew this little bit of history:
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 everywhere 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 every one 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 Fredericksburg
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.
There is a reason that our national motto is, IN GOD WE TRUST.
Why have we forgotten?
I'll say, God.
Van
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