The Day He Hauled Down His Headquarters Flag, Putting a Finis to World War II, Admiral Nimitz Attributes Victory not to Himself, but to “the officers and men of the Pacific Fleet.”

On the morning of December 31, 1941, at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the deck of the submarine USS Grayling, one of history's greatest fighting heroes in World War II, Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, hoisted his four-star flag on the mast, thereby assuming command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. As Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet, he commanded some 5,000 ships and 2 million men – amounting to more military power than had been wielded by all the commanders in all previous wars.

Nimitz was instrumental in defeating the Japanese fleet at the Battle of Midway in June 1942 and in molding together the diverse elements of the Pacific Fleet for the war against Japan. He brilliantly directed the offensive of 1942-1943 in the Solomons and the multi-faceted Central Pacific counteroffensive of 1943-1945. The strategy of using these island-hopping campaigns to get ever-closer to Japan itself, as successfully achieved by Nimitz, gave the U.S. air forces the proximity to launch bombing raids and pushed the Japanese into a corner from which they could not extricate themselves. Moreover, his little-publicized, unremitting campaign of attrition by the submarine force was to sever Japan's logistics which in turn virtually starved Japan into submission. Nimitz was promoted to the rank of Fleet Admiral in December 1944. After the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945, Japan sued for peace. To Nimitz fell the honor of signing the Japanese surrender documents on behalf of the United States aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945. The Admiral's flag that had been hoisted aboard the submarine Grayling at Pearl Harbor in December 1941 was hauled down on November 24, 1945, again at Pearl Harbor. Thus ended Admiral Nimitz’s war, and that of the famed naval command that had gained victory in World War II.

Typed Letter Signed, on his Commander in Chief letterhead, Pearl Harbor, November 24, 1945, to Mr. Green, a teacher at John Paul Jones Junior High School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who had recently written him on behalf of his class offering congratulations on the American victory in the Pacific. “Thank you for your letter of 31 October which arrived at my Pearl Harbor headquarters during my recent visit to the mainland. Our brilliant victory over the Japanese nation was assured by the resourcefulness and unwavering devotion to duty of the officers and men of the Pacific Fleet and Pacific Ocean Areas. It is on their behalf that I accept your congratulations. With all good wishes to you and the students of the John Paul Jones Junior High School.”