Biography of Admiral Nimitz Chester William Nimitz was born on 24 February 1885, in Fredericksburg, Texas. Chester’s grandfather was a retired sea captain, however Chester, had his sights set on an Army career. While a student in high school, he tried for an appointment to West Point. When there was not one available, he took a competitive examination for Annapolis and was selected and appointed from Texas in 1901. He left high school to enter the Naval Academy, Class of 1905. It was many years later, after he had become a Fleet Admiral that he actually was awarded his high school diploma. At the Academy, Nimitz was an excellent student, especially in mathematics and graduated with distinction -- seventh in a class of 114. The Naval Academy's yearbook, "Lucky Bag", described him as a man "of cheerful yesterdays and confident tomorrows." After graduation, he joined USS Ohio in San Francisco and cruised to the Far East. On 31 January 1907, after the two years' sea duty then required by law, Nimitz was commissioned an Ensign, and took command of the gunboat USS Panay. He then commanded USS Decatur and was court martialed for grounding her, an obstacle in his career which he overcame. He returned to the U. S. in 1907, and was ordered to submarine duty, the branch of the service in which he spent a large part of his sea duty. His first submarine was USS Plunger (A- 1). He successively commanded USS Snapper, USS Narwal and USS Skipjack until 1912. On 20 March of that year, Nimitz, then a Lieutenant, and commanding officer of the submarine E-1 (formerly Skipjack), was awarded the Silver Lifesaving Medal by the Treasury Department for his heroic action in saving W.J. Walsh, Fireman second class, USN, from drowning. A strong tide was running and Walsh, who could not swim, was quickly being swept away from his ship. Lieutenant Nimitz dove in the water and kept Walsh afloat until a small boat picked both up. He had one year in command of the Atlantic Submarine Flotilla before coming ashore in 1913 for duty in connection with building the diesel engines for the tanker USS Maumee at Groton, Conn. In that same year, he was sent to Germany and Belgium to study engines at their Diesel Plants. With that experience he subsequently served as Executive Officer and Engineering Officer of the Maumee until 1917 when he was assigned as Aide and Chief of Staff.
school. It was a wonder that he got into Notre Dame with his high school record.
He served in WWII as a flight radar observer and navigator. After serving in the army he went to school at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. He went there on the G. I. Bill. After graduating from Vanderbilt with a M. A. in English, he started to teach. He taught first at the Rice Institute in Houston, Texas. His time there was cut short because he was recalled to duty in Korea as flight training instructor. But as soon as he was discharged from the Corps he returned to teach again at Rice University. He taught at Rice until 1954 when he left to go to Europe on the Sewanee Review fellowship. After returning to the U.S. he joined the English Department at the University of Florida. He did not stay there long because he resigned after a dispute after he h...
From the book the admirals I picked up a lot of knowledge and interesting facts that I was unaware of before I had read it. The Admirals takes place before, during and after World War II which goes on to explain how four different men who were enlisted in the navy were promoted to become the only Five-Star Fleet Admirals in American history. These four men were perhaps one of the biggest, if not the biggest reason that the Allied forces had won the war. The four men that received the honor and rank of Five-Star Fleet Admiral were “William D. Leahy, Ernest J. King, Chester W. Nimitz, and William F. Halsey”.
Born August 1923 in Guide Rock, Nebraska. Enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps upon graduating from High School in June 1942.
He was then drafted into the U.S. Army where he was refused admission to the Officer Candidate School. He fought this until he was finally accepted and graduated as a first lieutenant. He was in the Army from 1941 until 1944 and was stationed in Kansas and Fort Hood, Texas. While stationed in Kansas he worked with a boxer named Joe Louis in order to fight unfair treatment towards African-Americans in the military and when training in Fort Hood, Texas he refused to go to the back of the public bus and was court-martialed for insubordination. Because of this he never made it to Europe with his unit and in 1944 he received an honorable discharge.
Douglas Macarthur was born on 26th January 1880, in Little Rock, Arkansas to General Arthur Macarthur and wife, Mary Pinckney Hardy. Like his father, he decided to pursue a military career and entered the army. He went to West Point Military Academy and graduated as a valedictorian in 1903. He began his career as an engineering officer in the army but climbed through the ranks and became a General. He was also nominated and given several honors and awards throughout his lifetime. He was known to be aggressive, radical and brave, which led him to make some decisions that were not generally approved (McCullough).
McClellan graduated second in his class from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1846. Right after he graduated, he served in the Mexican war until 1848. He received two brevets for his service. Between 1852-1854, McClellan worked as an Army surveyor in western territories, on the Red River, and on railroad routes. After that, he was sent to observe the Crimean war. In 1857, he resigned from the Army to be chief engineer of the Illinois Central Railroad, and in January of 1858, McClellan was promoted to vice-president of the railroad company.
During WWI he chose to become a flying cadet in the Army signal corps and commissioned as a second lieutenant (Patterson). He was also a member of Billy Mitchell’s bombing crew that proved importance of air strikes. In September of 1922 he completed the first of many pioneering flights (Patterson). These flights earned him credibility and gave him the experience he would later need for future bombings in Tokyo and Berlin. Doolittle created a name for himself internationally and collected many trophies for his accomplishments, including the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Harmon trophy (for the first flight using only instruments). After the bombing at Pearl Harbor, General Arnold allowed Doolittle to lead the Tokyo raid; Doolittle hand-picked his crew and prepared them with “detailed planning, training, and rehearsals” (Donley). In 1942, Doolittle was promoted to Brigadier General when he led the first carrier based bombing on Japan. These accomplishments led Doolittle to success commanding at the operational level. Doolittle was selected to lead at the operational level because of his success in Japan and his prior experience. The Tokyo raid was successful because of Joint cooperation, a reduction of the Imperial troops, and elevated morale for the Allies (Donley). The raid Doolittle led “on the Japan homeland lured [Japan] into withholding forces for the defense of Japan and thereby overextending themselves in the Battle of Midway where the Navy would hand them a significant defeat” (Donley). Because he worked with the Navy, Doolittle successfully planned an attack that would defeat the Japanese. He also had experience commanding air units in Europe under Eisenhower. He proved early on in his career that he understood risk management which is crucial to an operational commander (Donley). His history of success and understanding of warfare were factors in his promotion to an operational
Unbeknownst to Admiral Yamamoto, US code breakers had deciphered the Japanese radio transmissions and the Americans knew exactly what he was doing. With this knowledge, Admiral Nimitz, commander of the US Naval forces in the Pacific, decided to send a contingent of 21 ships to Alaska and retained the rest of his fleet in the defense of Midway. The Japanese fleet was able to elude the Americans and attack the base at Dutch Harbor on the 3rd and 4th of June. Afterwards they were able to evade a naval confrontation again, and landed on the islands of Kiska and Attu on the 7th of June, quickly subduing the military and civilian inhabitants.
On April 23, 1791, a great man was born; fifteenth president of the United States, James Buchanan.He was born near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. His father, James Buchanan, and his mother Elizabeth Speer Buchanan, raised their son a Presbyterian. He grew up in a well to do home, being the eldest of eleven other siblings. His parents cared for them all in their mansion in Pennsylvania. They sent him to Dickinson College.
...Pacific. In particular, he wanted to thank troops recovering from their ordeal on Guadalcanal. At age 59, he was tired, weary of war, and of life itself: "I have killed quite a few of the enemy, and many of my own men have been killed. So I believe the time has come for me to die too." During the Guadalcanal conflict, his hair had turned snowy-white. In April 1943, U.S. intelligence detected advance reports of general Yamamoto's fleet, Eighteen American Lightning planes were waiting for the first attempt in history to ambush an enemy commander-in-chief in the air. On the 18th, his aircraft, under the escort of nine zeroes, was shot down by a P-38 near Kahili in southern Bougainville. On June 5, the admiral's ashes were honored in Tokyo at the nation wide ceremony, this was the largest tribute in Japan since Admiral Togo and both were in 1934.(Gordon Prange) (343-356)
Chester Alan Arthur was born on October 5, 1830 in Fairfield, Vermont. The son of Malvina Arthur and the Reverend William Arthur, a passionate abolitionist, young Chester and his family migrated from one Baptist parish to another in Vermont and New York. The fifth of eight children, Chester had six sisters and one older brother. Before beginning school in Union Village (now Greenwich), New York, he studied the fundamentals of reading and writing at home.
At the age of thirteen he began working in order to earn money for college. He was a shoe shiner, an elevator boy, and a paper boy. He attended the all-black Armstrong High School, where he acted in plays, was a sergeant in the Cadet Corps, and earned good grades, graduating at the age of 16.
which he served as a member of the French army. After the war was finished, he
When he was 18 years old, he went on expedition to Newfoundland. Upon returning to England, he worked for Shell. During World War II, he served in the Royal Air forces in Libya, Greede and Syria. Being a pilot was dangerous and Dahl had a bad crash in the desert.