Free Republic

In late December 1941, Navy Secretary Frank Knox and FDR met and selected Chester Nimitz to command the Pacific Fleet, which at that time the public perceived as residing at the bottom of Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt said, “Tell Nimitz to get the hell out to Pearl and stay there until the war is won”. Knox informed Nimitz by saying, “You’re going to take command of the Pacific Fleet, and I think you will be gone a long time”.On Christmas Day 1941 Admiral Chester Nimitz arrived by Catalina flying boat to take command. He did not bring any staff with him....

On page 8 is a brief story that has become somewhat of a legend about the defenders of Wake Island. When Hawaii radioed the garrison asking what they needed after defeating the initial assault by the Japanese invasion fleet on 11 December, the response was "Send us more Japs!" "Send us" and "more Japs" was added to the beginning and end of the message, but that was only to confuse Japanese code breakers. "None of us was that much of a damn fool," James Devereux (commanding officer of the 1st Defense Battalion) said after the war, "We already had more...

...The ferocious partisan dissension that has broken out at home over the war on terror dangerously subtracts from the nation's war-fighting effectiveness. • Partisan warfare at home has given credibility and confidence to America's enemies abroad.... • Partisan disunity has damaged America's alliances.... • Hyper-partisanship has weakened America's own war-fighting strength.... It's essential to acknowledge mistakes and learn from them.... At home, ...Democrats will do everything they can to stop [Bush].... There are, however, some actions that might help President Bush introduce some useful bipartisanship to American foreign policy. • Listen: For months after 9/11, President Bush met once a...