[StBernard] JAPANESE MISTAKES

[Westley Annis]

		 This has been around before, but what a good thought to think postive and not negative...Fits our situation today. We just need a leader who thinks positive...and smart..................tex
		Great example of looking for the good in a bad situation.
		 

	 

	A very different and interesting conclusion of the December 7th attack on Pearl Harbor. 
	Read on . . . ..
	Tour boats ferry people out to the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii every thirty minutes.
	
	We just missed a ferry and had to wait thirty minutes.
	
	I went into a small gift shop to kill time.
	
	In the gift shop, I purchased a small 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.
	
	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 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 on top of the ground in 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 Fredricksburg , Texas -- he was a born optimist.
	
	But anyway 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."