Woodridge VFW Post 1578 Remembers Pearl Harbor

The Lisle/Woodridge Fire Department Honor Guard proudly supported the remembrance Service. Public attendees were treated to refreshments following the ceremony. The following was read at the remembrance ceremony:

"God Was Watching Over America" December 7, 1941

This article is from a book entitled, "Reflections on Pearl Harbor" by Admiral

Chester Nimitz.

Sunday, December 7th, 1941--Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert in

Washington D.C. He was paged and told there was a phone call for him. When he

answered the phone, it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt . He told

Admiral Nimitz that he (Nimitz) would now be the Commander of the Pacific

Fleet. Admiral Nimitz flew to Hawaii to assume command of the Pacific Fleet. He

landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941. There was such a spirit of

despair, dejection and defeat--you would have thought the Japanese had already

won the war. On Christmas Day, 1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a boat tour of the

destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Big sunken battleships

and navy vessels cluttered the waters everywhere you looked.

As the tour boat returned to dock, the young helmsman of the boat asked, "Well

Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?" Admiral Nimitz's

reply shocked everyone within the sound of his voice. He said, "The Japanese

made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make, or God was

taking care of America. Which do you think it was?" Shocked and surprised, the

young helmsman asked, "What do you mean by saying the Japanese made the

three biggest mistakes an attack force ever made?"

Nimitz explained: “
Mistake number one
: The Japanese attacked on Sunday

morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave. If

those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk--we would have lost

38,000 men instead of 3,800.”

“
Mistake number two
: When the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a

row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once

bombed our dry docks opposite those ships. If they had destroyed our dry

docks, we would have had to tow every one of those ships to America to be

repaired. As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised. One tug

can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea

by the time we could have towed them to America. And I already have crews

ashore anxious to man those ships.”

“Mistake number three
: Every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in

above ground storage tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane

could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply.

That's why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack

force could make or God was taking care of America.”

Admiral Nimitz was a Texan, born and raised in Fredericksburg, Texas --he was a

born optimist. But any way you look at it--Admiral Nimitz was able to see a silver

lining in a situation and circumstance where everyone else saw only despair and

defeatism. President Roosevelt had chosen the right man for the right job. We

desperately needed a leader that could see silver linings in the midst of the

clouds of dejection, despair and defeat.

There is a reason that our national motto is, IN GOD WE TRUST (adopted as law

in 1956).