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GOD & 3 Mistakes
Fr9m Robin Nixon
4-27-20
This is such a beautiful story . . . even tho it was a terrible lesson for us. hope you enjoy it!
God & 3 Mistakes
What God did at Pearl Harbor
Sunday, December 7th, 1941--Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a
concert in Washington, DC. He was paged and told there was a phone
call for him. When he answered the phone, it was President Franklin
DelanoRoosevelt on the phone.
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.
Admiral Nimitz 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 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 top of the
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.
I've never forgotten what I read in that little book. It is still an
inspiration as I reflect upon it. In jest, I might suggest that
because 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 lining in the midst
of the clouds of dejection, despair and defeat.
There is a reason that our national motto is, IN GOD WE TRUST. Why
have we forgotten? PRAY FOR OUR COUNTRY!
In God we trust!
Please pass this important message to others. Americans need to stand
with one another!
Robin Nixon <[email protected]>