On the morning of December 31, 1941, at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the deck of the submarine GRAYLING (SS-209), one of history's greatest fighting heroes in World War II, Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, hoisted his four-star flag on the mast of the GRAYLING thereby assuming command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
There is a sort of grim symbolism in the fact that Admiral Nimitz took command of the Pacific Fleet aboard a submarine. Though the new Commander-in-Chief was an old submariner, the choice was not just a matter of sentiment. The hard fact was that at this time the suitable surface combatant ships were on the bottom of the ocean floor or en route to the West Coast for repairs. Nimitz liked to say that he assumed command aboard a submarine because the Japanese attack had left no other sort of deck available at Pearl Harbor. Others say it was the fact that he wore the submariners' dolphins himself. Whatever the reason, Nimitz stated that "It was to the Submarine Force, that [he] looked to carry the load until our great industrial activity could produce the weapons we so sorely needed to carry the war to the enemy."
In World War II, Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, as Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet (CinCPac), commanded some five thousand ships and two million men â?? amounting to more military power than had been wielded by all the commanders in all previous wars. Yet it was to the Submarine Force that he turned to take the war to the enemy's front door. This little-publicized, unremitting campaign of attrition by the "Dolphin Navy" was to sever Japan's logistics which in turn virtually starved Japan into submission.
American submarines were to be second to no other service branch in their contributions to victory. By war's end, this small elite volunteer force sank 214 Japanese Naval Vessels, about a third of all Japanese warships destroyed, and 1,113 confirmed Japanese merchant ships (with an additional 65 probable), over one-half of its merchant marine shipping, for a total of 5,631,117 tons. This highly successful campaign would elevate the Submarine Service to an important place in our Fleet. However, these successes did not come without a price. Fifty-two submarines and 3,505 submariners were lost â??the highest percentage of losses of any other branch of the service.
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