Admiral Chester William Nimitz contributed to the success of the United States Navy from his beginnings at Annapolis 1905 to this very day. His accomplishments, contributions, and 61 years of service led to advancements in command strategy, naval education, goodwill measures, and the engineering and building of gas, diesel, and nuclear engines for navy vessels - especially submarines.
His leadership during WWII won the war in the Pacific. On September 2, 1945, Nimitz signed for the United States when Japan formally surrendered on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
Chester William Nimitz was born in Fredericksburg, TX in 1885 - six months after his own father's death.
His primary male role model was his hardy, sea-loving grandfather, who had been a German Merchant Marine, one of the first Texas Rangers, and a Confederate captain. His grandfather's experiences and advice were influential in the building of Nimitz's character and achievements. His grandfather told him, "the sea, like life itself - is a stern taskmaster. The best way to get along with either is to learn all you can, then do your best, and don't worry - especially about things over which you have no control."
His childhood home was the Nimitz Hotel in Fredericksburg, TX, which was built with the essence and elements of a ship so that Grandfather Nimitz would feel connected to the sea he missed so much. The young Chester had as his home and playground a ship's bridge and a pilothouse that looked out not over the sea, but out on the Texas hills.
Nimitz's first choice of school was West Point, and he applied at the age of 15. Unfortunately, there were no appointments available. On the advice of his Congressman, he studied hard for the one appointment available at Annapolis. He graduated from the Naval Academy 7th in his class of 114 in 1905. He had left high school to attend and did not receive a high school diploma until decades later when he was an Admiral.
By 1908, he was an Ensign that had served on four ships before running the fifth, the Decatur, aground on a sandbar in the Philippines. He was court-martialed and received a letter of reprimand.
A fast learner, he started instruction in the First Submarine Flotilla in January of 1909 and had command of the flotilla by May. He also had the command of the USS Plunger, the USS Snapper, and the USS Narwhal by November of 1910. By the end of 1911, he was Commander 3rd Submarine Division Atlantic Torpedo Fleet.
Over the next several years, Nimitz proved himself through several endeavors. In 1918, during WWI, he was appointed Chief of Staff to Admiral Samuel S. Robinson - the Commander of the Submarine Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet - and was awarded a Letter of Commendation for meritorious service. That October, he was appointed a senior member of the Board of Submarine Design.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, he served on various naval vessels and was appointed the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation in 1939.
His classmates said of him that he was "a man of cheerful yesterdays and confident tomorrows."
On December 17th, 1941 (ten days after Pearl Harbor), Roosevelt promoted him to Commander in Chief, United States Pacific Fleet, with the rank of Admiral.
When the Pacific theater was divided into three areas of command in 1942, Admiral Nimitz was given command over all sea, air, and ground units of the Pacific Ocean Areas as their Commander in Chief.
Admiral Nimitz was victorious in the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Battle of Midway, and the Solomon Islands Campaign.
An Act of Congress in 1944 recognized his contributions and created the grade of Fleet Admiral, which would be the highest rank in the Navy and to which President Roosevelt promoted Nimitz the following day.
In 1945 he was named Commander in Chief of the United States Fleet. When Nimitz was first married, before WWI, he and his wife spent time in Germany and Belgium, where he was educated on the building of diesel engines. He used that training to build the diesel engines of the Maumee when he returned to the U.S., becoming the executive and engineer officer of that vessel. It was the first diesel engine used in a surface Navy vessel.
The Maumee, with Nimitz on board, was the first vessel to conduct underway refuelings. It served as a refueling ship for Navy destroyers on their way across the Atlantic during WWI.
While bolstering his education with naval command training at the Navy War College in the 1920s, Nimitz worked on a hypothetical plan for how to win engagements in a Pacific War. That plan was later used in the Pacific Theater during WWII.
Nimitz helped win the war with not only battle strategy, but maintenance plans - by creating forward repair stations and maintenance squadrons.
During WWII, he organized his single fleet into separate "staff" with supporting directives, so that while one did this, the other could do that. By having one staff commanding 
and the other planning upcoming assaults, the Japanese were continuously deluded into thinking the Navy fleet was much larger. This ingenious plan led to the future honing of command procedures.
Admiral Nimitz was the U.S. signer of the peace treaty with Japan after their surrender in WWII aboard the battleship Missouri.
His influence, expert knowledge of submarines, and support of Captain Hyman G. Rickover's proposal for a nuclear submarine led to the building of the first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus.
He was the last officer to ever serve as Fleet Admiral. He was Chairman of the Presidential Commission on Internal Security and Individual Rights, a roving ambassador for the United Nations, the first professor of Naval Science at the University of California, a regent of the University of California, and in retirement was Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy in the Western Sea Frontier.
Admiral Nimitz submitted an affidavit to the Nuremberg Trials supporting unrestricted submarine warfare, which both he and German Admiral Karl Donitz had employed during the war. This affidavit may have been one of the reasons Donitz was only required to serve ten years.
He earned more awards and received more decorations than can be listed here. Roosevelt declared October 5th, "Nimitz Day." He was present for a parade in his honor on that day in 1945 and on October 17th, 1964, on "Nimitz Day" at the University of California.
Nimitz participated in fundraising to help restore the Japanese Imperial Navy battleship, the Mikasa, with the intention of restoring goodwill with Japan.
Nimitz is featured on a United States stamp, and several things have been named after him including ships, schools, foundations, museums, freeways, military institutions, hills, summits, a glacier, musical compositions, eight schools, and even the town of Nimitz, WV.
He died at home at age 80 on the evening of February 20, 1966, at Quarters One on Yerba Buena Island in San Francisco Bay. He was buried with full military honors at Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, CA. He lies alongside his wife and his long-term friends Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, Admiral Richmond K. Turner, and Admiral Charles A. Lockwood and their wives, an arrangement made by all of them while living.
Source: War History Online
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In June of 1918, a fierce battle was waged at Belleau Wood, an ancient hunting-reserve of old-growth oaks, surrounded by wheat fields, located about 60 miles outside of Paris. The Germans were launching their spring offensive to overwhelm the Allies before they were fortified by fresh American troops. The Americans were arriving at a rate of about 250,000 per month. The Battle of Belleau Wood has since achieved near-mythic status in U.S. military history, particularly for the U.S. Marines.
Founded in 1775 during the American Revolution, the U.S. Marines Corps had a reputation for discipline, excellent marksmanship, and, as the Germans would find out at Belleau Woods, tenacity. During the Great War, they were also very young. A The New York Times article from July 1918 cites a report stating that 
"nearly one-third of the recruits obtained by the Marine Corps since the United States entered the war were under twenty-one years of age." The article goes on to quote Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels: "The policy of the Marine Corps in admitting boys of eighteen years and over into the ranks is more than justified by the heroic fighting by the Marines at Chateau-Thierry and Belleau Wood."
In the weeks of fighting at Belleau Wood, this heroism was demonstrated time and again. When met with retreating French troops who asked why the Americans were not also falling back, Capt. Lloyd Williams responded, "Retreat? Hell, we just got here." In the early days of battle, the Marines charged through the fields surrounding Belleau Wood and into German machine gunfire. As they struggled across the fields, their comrades falling around them, one gunnery sergeant cried out, "Come on, you sons of bitches! Do you want to live forever?" Once they were in the wood, the dense growth and intense fighting made the arrival of reinforcements, food, or medical care impossible. By the battle's end, 1,811 U.S. Marines had been killed, and another 7,966 were wounded.
Who were these men who fought so bravely and ferociously in Belleau Wood? One of the more well-known veterans of that confrontation was writer Laurence Stallings, who lost a leg at Belleau Wood. After the war, Stallings co-wrote the play, What Price Glory? In addition to his work as a critic and a screenplay writer, compiled a survey of the American Expeditionary Forces called "The Doughboys." Pvt. Albert McArdle of East Boston was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for exceptional bravery in action. 
The Boston Daily Globe reported that Pvt. McArdle, "while dressing the wounds of a man in the front trench first aid station at Belleau Wood, was shot through both thighs, but as his patient was desperately in need of emergency care, he completed the work that saved the man's life before he staunched his own wounds."
Aside from these notable veterans, there are hundreds of others who were wounded and killed in that dense, dark forest in France. An article in The New York Times from July 26, 1918, claims that casualty lists given out the day before were "the heaviest for New York yet issued." It goes on to list those killed, wounded, and missing from Belleau Wood and other campaigns in the area. In reading the brief background of each fallen man, a deeper story beyond the statistics of war begins to take shape.
"He was a happy boy when he received a notification to go to Camp Upton," said Mrs. Alice A. Harper, mother of severely wounded Roland Harper of Brooklyn, NY, "He said at that time he was glad to get the chance to get a crack at the Kaiser."
Before he was killed in action, Gunnery Sergeant Gerald R. Finnegan of Boston wrote to his cousin that "the whistle of German lead sounds better than music." Another Marine killed in action, Corporal William Fanning, enlisted after he saw a "first-to-fight" Marine recruiting poster. According to an uncle, when Fanning's brother Patrick learned of his death, "he went out at once to find a Marine recruiting office."
Twenty-five-year-old John Enamenger, severely wounded at Belleau Wood, was drafted in the fall of 1917, "and did not claim exemption, although he had a 2-year-old daughter." 
The casualty lists that rolled in week after week printed the names of hundreds of other clerks, bakers, printers, factory workers, tailors, fathers, sons, and brothers.
Following the battle, the French renamed Belleau Wood "Bois de la Brigade de Marine" or "Wood of the Marine Brigade." In 1923, Belleau Wood was dedicated as an American Battle Memorial. After the American flag was raised, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the Supreme Allied Commander during the final year of WWI, was reported to have "tears rolling down his cheeks" as he assured the gathered relatives of the American dead that "the men who died here are safe; they will be guarded by us religiously." Maj. Gen. James G. Harbord, commander of the Marines, spoke as well: "This scarred and shell-shot ground has brought undying fame to the Marine Brigade and their comrades of the Second Engineers."
The Civil War profoundly shaped the United States as we know it today. Nevertheless, the war remains one of the most misunderstood events in American history. Here are ten basic facts you need to know about America's defining struggle.
The Civil War was fought between the Northern and the Southern states from 1861 - 1865
The Civil War, also known as "The War Between the States," was fought between the United States of America and the Confederate 
States of America, a collection of eleven southern states that left the Union in 1860 and 1861 and formed their own country to protect the institution of slavery.
Jefferson Davis, a former U.S. Senator and Secretary of War, was appointed President of the Confederate States of America. The United States thought that the southern states were wrong to leave the Union and initiated a war that raged across the country for four years. In 1865, the United States defeated the Confederate States and abolished slavery nationwide.
Abraham Lincoln was the President of the United States during the Civil War
Abraham Lincoln grew up in a log cabin in Kentucky. He worked as a shopkeeper and a lawyer before entering politics in the 1840s. Alarmed by his anti-slavery stance, the southern states seceded soon after he was elected president in 1860. Lincoln declared that he would do everything necessary to keep the United States a united country. He refused to recognize the southern states as an independent nation, and the Civil War erupted in the spring of 1861.
On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves in the southern states and laid the groundwork for slaves to 
eventually be freed across the country. He narrowly won re-election in 1864 against opponents who wanted to sign a peace treaty with the southern states.
On April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a southern sympathizer.
Before the United States was formed, many different civilizations existed on the American continent.
Native Americans have lived in North America for more than 12,000 years. Around 400 years ago, people from the Netherlands, England, Spain, and France arrived in North America and began to establish small, independent colonies. These different civilizations traded, mixed, and fought with each other.
In 1789, they united and formed a common government based on an agreement known as the Constitution. Many considered the Constitution to be a non - binding agreement: they believed that the different civilizations, now called "states," could leave the common government at any time they chose.
The issues of slavery and central power divided the United States.
Slavery was the law of the land, north, and south, until the early 19th century. It was concentrated in the southern states, where slaves were used as farm laborers and formed the backbone of the southern economy. In the northern states, where industry drove the economy, many people believed that slavery was immoral and wrong. Southerners felt threatened by these northern "abolitionists" and claimed that the common government had no power to end slavery against the wishes of the states.
Eventually, southerners became convinced that the common government would attempt to abolish slavery nationwide. Eleven states left the United States in the following order and formed the Confederate States of America: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
When the southern states seceded from the Union, there were still a few forts on southern soil that were manned by United States soldiers. Rather than surrender the forts, President Lincoln attempted to resupply the soldiers by sea. The Confederacy learned of Lincoln's plans and demanded that the forts surrender under threat of force. When the U.S. soldiers refused, South Carolinians launched a bombardment of Fort Sumter in the Charleston harbor. After a 34 - hour battle, the soldiers inside the fort surrendered to the Confederates. Legions of men from north and south joined with their leaders to protect their interests.
The primary interest of the north was to maintain the United States as a single, undivided country. The primary reason for the south seceding from the Union was to protect the right to own slaves.
The North had more men and war materials than the South.
At the beginning of the Civil War, 22 million people lived in the North, and 9 million people (4 million of whom were slaves) lived in the South. The North also had more money, more factories, more horses, more railroads, and more food.
These advantages made the United States much more powerful than the Confederate States. However, the Confederates were fighting defensively, and their soldiers and generals frequently proved to be more skilled than their northern counterparts, allowing them to mount a stubborn resistance to the United States.
The bloodiest battle of the Civil War was the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
The Civil War devastated the Confederate states. The presence of vast armies throughout the countryside meant that livestock, crops, and other staples were consumed very quickly. To gather fresh supplies and intimidate the United States, Confederate General Robert E. Lee launched a daring invasion of the North in the summer of 1863. He was defeated by Union General George G. Meade in a three-day battle near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, that left nearly 52,000 men killed, wounded, or missing in action.
Many historians mark the Battle of Gettysburg as the "turning point" in the Civil War when the South began to lose.
After the battle, President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, which expressed a firm commitment to preserving the Union and became one of the most famous speeches in American history.
The North won the Civil War.
After four years of conflict, the last major Confederate armies surrendered to the United States in April of 1865. The war bankrupted the South, left its roads, farms, and factories in ruins, and all but wiped out an entire generation of men.
More than 620,000 men died in the Civil War, more than any other war in American history. The southern states were occupied by Union soldiers, rebuilt, and gradually readmitted to the United States over the course of twenty difficult years, known as the Reconstruction Era.
After the war was over, the Constitution was amended to free the slaves, to assure "equal protection under the law" for American citizens, and to grant black men the right to vote.
The southern states seceded to prevent the abolition of slavery. During the war, Abraham Lincoln freed some slaves and allowed freedmen to join the Union Army. It was clear to many that it was only a matter of time before slavery was fully abolished.
As the war ended, but before the southern states were re-admitted to the United States, the northern states added the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery, the 14th Amendment guaranteed that citizens would receive "equal protection under the law," and the 15th Amendment granted black men the right to vote. The 14th Amendment has played an ongoing role in American society as different groups of citizens continue to lobby for equal treatment by the government.
Many Civil War battlefields are threatened by development.
The United States government has identified 384 battles that had a significant impact on the larger war. Many of these battlefields have been developed - turned into shopping malls, pizza parlors, housing developments, etc. - and many more are threatened by development.
Since the end of the Civil War, veterans and other citizens have struggled to preserve the fields on which Americans fought and died.
The Civil War Trust and its partners have preserved tens of thousands of acres of battlefield land.