Nimitz was Commander in Chief of the United States Pacific Fleet and
Pacific Ocean Area from 1941 to 1945. His victory in the Battle of the
Midway in 1942 was aided by the decyphering of the Japanese naval code a
few months earlier.
Nimitz was an advocate of amphibious operations which were used to take
poorly defended islands behind the Japanese lines. Nimitz then aided
General MacArthur’s landings on Luzon, Okinawa and later Iwo Jima. The
long-standing rivalry between Nimitz and MacArthur was set aside when MacArthur accepted the Japanese surrender on board Nimitz’s flagship the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945.
