In the years after WWI, Nimitz continued to broaden his scope of knowledge and influence through numerous assignments, including Commander of Submarine Division 20, Commander Battle Division One, and eleven months as a student at the Naval War College, which he later reflected had prepared him for the fight against the Japanese Navy during WWII.

With characteristic modesty, his account in a letter to his future wife, Catherine Vance Freeman, read, “I had to go swimming yesterday, and it was awfully, awfully cold.” The couple wed in 1913. Although found guilty at a court-martial for “hazarding” a Navy ship, the admiral who signed his first report stated, “This is a good officer and will take more care in the future.”Įarly in his career, Nimitz received the first of numerous medals, the Silver Life Saving Medal, for leaping overboard to rescue a drowning seaman while commanding the USS SKIPJACK, one of the Navy's earliest submarines.

To combat this issue rationing was introduced. SeptemSeptemParticipants: Axis powers Czechoslovakia Free French Germany Greece Poland South Africa United Kingdom United States Allied powers. In 1906, Ensign Nimitz commanded the USS Decatur, an old destroyer which he ran aground. Due to a combination of labour shortages and naval blockades there were food shortages across the British Isles. Nimitz commanded more than two million men and women, 5,000 ships and 20,000 planes, but one would not have predicted that distinguished future judging by Nimitz’s first command. At the height of the Pacific War, Fleet Admiral Chester W.

Life in the navy during world war 2