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?

      A very interesting history detail, probably you're aware that emperor Hiro-Hito repeatedly tried to dissuade the generals about an attack to Pearl-Harbour; even if they had hit
  the targets you point, this won't have changed the result, the industrial and manpower of USA was much bigger than all of the 'axis' nations combined, and thus their defeat may
  have taken a bit longer, but the difference was just time, not the end result; the same applies to any invasion to the Russian land.
   Even if a very high in number alien force entered the US mainland, it would led them to nothing, the structure of US nation and population is unique, an invader would have to
  fight house by house with every resident, and in a frame of disperse production facilities, 'strategic' attacks would be hard to perform, as too many hits would be needed to
   obtain a noticeable effect on the economy. 'Il peut dormir ce souverain, sur ses deux oreilles serein'
   You're probably also aware of the science of 'Geopolitics', that probably can be summarized in two postulates: 'The one who dominates the island of Europe will dominate Europe'
    'The one who dominates Europe will dominate the world'. The 'island of Europe' is Poland. By the way: what the Wehrmacht invaded in September 1939 was not Poland, they
   invaded Prussia, and then, France and the UK declared war to the Nazi Germany, not the reverse, and I'm not trying to defend a regime that dissapeared long before I was born
   and committed many crimes.
   Enjoy Xmas season and new year. Salut †            Jose Gros-Aymerich
Madrid, Spain


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