Our Amicus WLBOTTis“H” noticed a connection between Slim Whitman and a national, and more importantly, Texas hero, Admiral Chester Nimitz.
Here’s one for you … Including a free NAH … What famous Texan shares/shared a physical attribute with Slim Whitman?
– H
Okay, so known physical attributes of Slim Whitman: 1) not among the living 2) pencil-thin mustache 3) missing finger 4) Yodeler / falsettoist (one who falsets)
My first thought was Vincent Price, who shares 1) and 2) with Slim Whitman, but is not a Texan.
My second thought was Roy Orbison, who shares 1) and 4).
NAH.
– UC#4
So… your hint… this person has an entire section of a museum dedicated to him/her, including a display case showing artifacts regarding said physical attribute.
– H
Was Elisabet Ney missing a finger? If not, NAH. (Elizabet Ney, right)
– UC#4
No chicanery intended… [ed. note: oddly, all of “H” ‘s notes and conversations begin with this phrase]
– H
Would he and/or she have happened to be born a 72 hr walk from the nearest beach?
– UC#4
Well done!
Yes, 72 hours indeed.
I have visited the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg several times, and the display case, as I recall, has both his white glove (which was what was initially “caught” by the machine), as well as his semi-crushed ring (which prevented his entire hand from being mangled). It also has a wonderful Japanese garden, and for many years had a Japanese-made 2-man submarine, of which it and it’s sibling are thought to be the only vessels that attacked the American mainland during the war.
It is enlightening to me to hear that really smart people do dumb things… in the video at the museum, there is a statement from one of his high-ranking officers, who states that whenever Nimitz asked you a question during a meeting, you had the feeling he already knew the answer and was just seeing if you knew it as well. And I definitely believe there are people who are just that smart. It didn’t hurt that Nimitz looked like an actor portraying an American admiral, he was substantial looking.
Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert on Dec. 7, 1941 when he was paged and told a phone call awaited him. President Franklin Roosevelt was on the line and informed the admiral that he was now the commander of the Pacific Fleet. Nimitz’s plane touched down at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941. The next day, Christmas, Nimitz took a boat tour of Pearl Harbor to assess the damage. A young helmsman asked Nimitz what he thought of the destruction. The admiral replied, “The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make, or maybe God was taking care of America. Which do you think it was?”
The helmsman was stunned by Nimitz’s statement as would be any American after surveying the almost complete destruction of an entire fleet in the oily harbor. The key word in that last sentence is “almost.” Nimitz was spot on. Here are the three Japanese mistakes, according to Admiral Nimitz.
One: The Japanese chose a Sunday morning believing most of the fleet would be asleep, caught off guard, on shore leave, and certainly not at battle readiness. They were right, but Nimitz believed their decision to strike on a Sunday saved countless American lives. Nine out of 10 crewmen were still ashore that Sunday morning, and most of them were most likely in no shape to engage in meaningful combat. Had the crewmen not been ashore on a typical hell-raising Saturday night, plus had the 7th Fleet been enticed out to sea and sunk, 38,000 men would have perished instead of 3,000, and in deep water the sunken warships could not have been recovered.
Two: Although the dry docks and repair facilities were targeted by the Japanese, the young pilots became so enthralled sinking the big battleships and other easy targets that the maintenance shops and docks and cranes and repair facilities were mostly ignored and suffered only light damage. The ships sunk and seriously damaged were in the shallow waters of the harbor, therefore, the vessels could be salvaged, repaired at intact facilities, and back in action in the time it would take to tow them to the states for refurbishing.
Three: Five miles from the central harbor, or as Nimitz stated, “Just over that hill,” a tank farm housed 4.5 million gallons of fuel, every drop of petroleum for the Pacific. One well-placed bomb dropped by a Japanese dive bomber or if a Zero fighter had strafed the above-ground fuel tanks, the Pacific Fleet would have been instantly out of fuel and out of service. Too, the resulting explosions and massive fires would have resulted in untold casualties and extensive damage.
I wonder if Admiral Nimitz ever listened to Slim Whitman …
– H
The Japanese Garden of Peace
The Japanese Garden of Peace is adjacent to the Nimitz Museum. UC#4 has also visited, and it is truly beautiful.
The Japanese Garden of Peace was designed by Taketora Saita of Tokyo and constructed during 1976 at Nimitz’s boyhood home. The Nimitz home is part of the museum complex which includes the National Museum of the Pacific War. The traditional garden is a gift from the people of Japan to the people of America, part of the reconciliation between the United States and Japan and to honor the friendship between Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and Admiral Heihachiro Togo. – Wikipedia
After construction funds were raised in Japan, Japanese craftsmen traveled to Texas to build the garden. The finished, $400,000 renovation was opened and dedicated on the 130th founding of Fredericksburg, May 8, 1976. The Admiral Nimitz Foundation is a member of the North American Japanese Garden Association and employs a full-time, properly trained gardener who maintains the facility. – Wikipedia
In 1958, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, an admirer of Tōgō, helped to finance the restoration of the Mikasa, Admiral Tōgō’s flagship during the Russo-Japanese war. In exchange, Japanese craftsmen created the Japanese Garden of Peace, a replica of Marshal-Admiral Tōgō’s garden, at the National Museum of the Pacific War (formerly known as The Nimitz Museum) in Fredericksburg, Texas. – Wikipedia
On Monday, April 30 [2018], the museum held a rededication ceremony for the garden, which was a gift from the people of Japan to the people of America in honor of the friendship between Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and Admiral Heihachiro Togo.
This friendship between then-Ensign Nimitz and Admiral Togo started when they met in Tokyo at a reception honoring Admiral Togo and his victory at the Battle of the Sea of Japan in 1905. This friendship continued through Admiral Togo’s death in May 1934, where then-Captain Nimitz and his entire crew marched in Admiral Togo’s funeral. Admiral Nimitz was also instrumental in saving Admiral Togo’s flagship, the Mikasa, from destruction after World War II. – Texas.gov
Peace Garden Dedication
By Ed Uthman from Houston, TX, USA – Japanese Peace Garden, CC BY 2.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26044665
There is a tremendous amount of information about Admiral Nimitz. He truly was a remarkable person, and a brave hero for America.
So we won’t try to cover his life and career (a good starting point is his Wikipedia article).
While visiting the US Naval Academy’s museum, I saw a life-size display of US Navy Admiral Chester Nimitz signing the Instrument of Surrender ending WWII with the Empire of Japan. The pen displayed is the one he used. He gave it to his sister after the war and she donated it to the US Naval Academy upon her death. The staff didn’t know the brand of the pen, so I took cell phone images with the staffs approval. Can anyone recognize the pen?
More info about the Parker Duofold can be found on a site dedicated to preserving fountain pen info.
There’s even a web site dedicated to selling advertisements of old Parker pens.
Footnote
There is a sad story concerning Admiral Nimitz’ son and daughter-in-law.
A dozen years earlier, my friend Sarah Smith’s parents decided to take end-of-life matters into their own hands. Chester Nimitz Jr. was 86, his wife Joan 89, both suffering from a host of degenerative ailments when they decided to end their lives. Nimitz, a rear admiral in the Navy, was a highly decorated World War II veteran who served under his father, Admiral of the Fleet Chester W. Nimitz Sr., who commanded the Pacific forces that defeated the Japanese.
Nimitz Jr. and his wife had planned their deaths meticulously, following suggestions in the book “Final Exit” by Derek Humphry, then president of the Hemlock Society.
The following is an excerpt from the study material for the class.
According to The New York Times obituary, “The Nimitzes did not believe in any afterlife or God, and embraced no religion. But one of Mr Nimitz’s three surviving sisters, Mary Aquinas, 70, is a Catholic nun. … Sister Mary said that she could not condone her brother’s decision to end his life, but that she felt sympathetic. ‘If you cannot see any value to suffering for yourself or others,’ she said, ‘Then maybe it does make sense to end your life.'”
The admiral’s suicide is a moral tragedy. As a war hero who earned a great name, Chester W. Nimitz Jr. was a man whom it is natural to admire and emulate. Yet, many of those who read of how he ended his life will conclude that this is the course of dignity and honor for brave men. Many will take the final step the admiral took—not out of calculation, but depression, loneliness, despair and fear.
