While I was in command of the Fourth AA Command, with Headquarters at Oakland, California, I saw quite frequently Admiral Osterhaus, an old friend from Panama days, who was in command of the large Naval establishment on Treasure Island, in the Bay. One day he called me on the telephone, said he was having a small cocktail party that afternoon to meet some visiting officers and invited me to attend.
I did so, and found out that the visiting officers Admirals King, Nimitz, Halsey and several others high up in the Fleet, who had been secretly assembled at Treasure Island for a most important high level conference.
I was talking to Admiral Nimitz when a very attractive young woman came up to speak to him. He seemed to be very fond of her, and, in introducing me, he explained that she was a Navy girl whom he had known all her life and who was the wife of one of the young officers on his staff.
They had not seen one another before during the War, and in the conversation she said: "Admiral Nimitz, there is something I would like to ask you. I know how great your responsibility is and that you have to make almost daily decisions on which the lives of thousands of men may depend. It seems almost beyond belief that you could, after all the long and continuous strain that you have been under, look so well and so unworried. How in the world do you stand up under the strain so well?"
He replied: "Well, I'll tell you. It is quite simple. I keep on the shelf above my bunk a copy of Dr. Douglas Southall Freeman's "Lee's Lieutenants." Every night when I go to bed I read it a while before I go to sleep. When I finish reading I think about the difficulties under which these commanders had to operate, with insufficient and poorly trained officers, inadequate ammunition, food, clothing and transportation, with no radio, aviation, and with very small and poorly organized staffs, and I realize how fortunate I am to have the finest ships, with full complements of well trained officers and enlisted men, with a full supply of food, ammunition and clothing, with the best modern radio and radar, with the finest aviation in the world, and with a complete and well organized staff of highly trained officers.
I can not help but feel that if they could accomplish what they did, under the difficulties that confronted them, such difficulties as I may have are relatively unimportant, and it would be very foolish of me to let them worry me."
I knew Dr. Freeman quite well when I was Assistant Commandant of the Coast Artillery School, and I thought he might be interested to learn of Admiral Nimitz's words. I told General Bishop, who also knew Dr. Freeman, and he wrote to Dr. Freeman about it. Later he showed me Dr. Freeman's letter in reply, in which he stated his gratification in learning that his books had been so highly regarded by Admiral Nimitz, and also stated that he had just sent Admiral Nimitz a personally autographed set of "Lee's Lieutenants."
I think that this little incident may perhaps be somewhat interesting as affording some insight into the personality and character of Admiral Nimitz, the Commander of the Pacific Fleet that destroyed the Japanese Fleet in World War II.