Because of controversy surrounding some of his decisions during the war, he was the last of the four five-star admirals to gain that rank-more than a year after Japan’s surrender. He led allied forces during the Battle for Guadalcanal (1942-43) and played a leading role in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, considered by some military historians to be the largest naval battle in world history. He was one of the US Navy’s most aggressive and successful leaders at sea and became far better known to the American public than his superior, Chester Nimitz. (1882-1959) commanded the United States Third Fleet in the South Pacific. After the war, he served briefly as Chief of Naval Operations and then moved to Berkeley where he and his wife lived from 1947 to 1964. His personal visits to sailors and soldiers in the field consistently boosted morale. Nimitz was even-tempered and rarely overruled subordinates. (General Douglas MacArthur commanded American forces in the Southwest Pacific, a second operational area.) Nimitz was the US Navy’s leading authority on submarines, and in World War I, he pioneered the new technique of refueling ships at sea, which proved to be crucial in the later war in the Pacific. Nimitz (1885-1966) was Commander-in-Chief of the US Pacific Fleet and led all Allied air, land, and sea forces in the Pacific Ocean during World War II. Photo: Berkeley Historical Plaque projectĬhester W. A longtime Berkeley resident and commander of the US Naval Fleet in WWII, the popular trail near Inspiration Point trail in Tilden Park is named for him. The four five-star admirals Admiral Chester W. Walter Borneman engagingly tells their stories in his joint biography, The Admirals. And one by one, as their talents became unmistakably clear, they each received a fifth star, becoming the only five-star admirals in American history. Yet they rose to the pinnacle of leadership in that war and played outsized roles in the Allied victory. They gained their first admiral’s stars by the 1930s, and all four were near or past retirement age when war broke out. Junior officers in World War I, captains by 1927. Annapolis graduates around the turn of the twentieth century. The popular Inspiration Point trail is named for him. Chester Nimitz, the commander in chief of the US Pacific Fleet in WWII, moved to Berkeley in his later years.
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