It must have been an omen of some kind. Although Chester William Nimitz was born two hundred miles from the coast, his boyhood home -- his seafaring grandfather’s unique hotel – was shaped like a ship. And although Nimitz’ first career choice was the army, he went on to become a five-star admiral in charge of the entire Pacific Fleet during World War II. His stature as a military hero has brought to the small, land-locked town of Fredericksburg a world-class museum memorializing the ocean war against Japan.

Chester Nimitz was born on February 24, 1885, to the already-widowed Anna (Henke) Nimitz. His grandfather, Charles H. Nimitz, was the father figure who shaped his character and values. Although Charles Nimitz had promised that one of his grandsons would become an admiral, Chester first sought an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. It was only when he learned that no appointment was available at West Point that he entered the Naval Academy at Annapolis. He graduated seventh in a class of 114 in 1905.

Nimitz served on several ships and submarines before going to Germany and Belgium to study diesel engines in 1913, the same year that he married Catherine Vance Freeman. He returned to oversee the building of the first diesel engine on a U.S. Navy vessel at Brooklyn Navy Yard, then served at the rank of commander during World War I. After the war, Nimitz went to Pearl Harbor to build a submarine base and command the Submarine Division.

During the 1920s at the Naval War College, Nimitz developed a plan for a theoretical Pacific War, then produced a training plan for Navy ROTC at the University of California at Berkeley. He rose through the ranks to become the admiral in charge of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Day of 1941 – eighteen days after the Japanese attack.

Nimitz co-ordinated a force of more than two million in the massive American island-hopping counter-offensive beginn ...

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