The following is an excerpt of a chapter of the biography of Nimitz
by Elmer Potter which deals with his service as captain of the USS
Augusta (16 October 1933-12 April 1935)
NY Library call no.: *R-AN (Nimitz) 98-9954
Annapolis, Md. : Naval Institute Press, c1976.
....Mrs. Nimitz, after her trip to the East Coast, rejoined Captain Nimitz and Nancy in Berkeley. Then the captain proceeded to Bremerton, Washington, where on October 16, 1934, in the Puget Sound Navy Yard, he assumed command of his cruiser. The Augusta was accounted a lucky ship, and certainly she was fortunate in having capable skippers. Nimitz, the future CinCPac, her third commander, had been preceded by Captain James O. Richardson, the future CinCUS, and by Captain Royal Ingersoll, the future CinCLant. Nimitz relieved Ingersoll ahead of schedule because the with serious illness in his family, had requested duty in American waters. When Nimitz took command of the lucky Augusta, she was somewhat down in her luck. She had just undergone a nearly 100 per cent replacement of her crew, including a complete turnover of all her officers except five ensigns. Most of her other officers had come directly from extended shore duty, but a sixth ensign, James T. ("Junior") Lay, had, at his own request, transferred from the cruiser Portland, because he wanted duty in the Orient.
The prospects for the cruiser herself were not of the best. She had just undergone a bobtail overhaul, two months instead of the usual three, she was not scheduled for a shakedown cruise or for refresher training after the overhaul; she was assigned only a couple of days of port repair trial runs, and was destined for the China Station, where there were no proper navy yard facilities. The overhaul had, as usual, left the ship badly turn up, her paint work dirty with greasy hand prints where piping had been removed and replaced. A stormy 21-day, crossing by the great-circle route from Seattle to Shanghai was little conducive to improving the condition of the ship or the competence of her crew.
On the morning of November 9, the Augusta moored in the Whangpoo River, off Shanghai, and routine salutes and ceremonies were duly performed. The staff of Commander in Chief, Asiatic Fleet, then began shifting with their gear over from the first cruiser Houston, the outgoing flagship moored nearby. At 5:00 p.m., November 14, the Commander in chief broke his flag on the Augusta. This was Admiral Frank B. Upham, an able and respected officer, known as "Stumpy" Upham because of his short stature. The four stars he was wearing represented only temporary rank, which enabled him to deal, socially and professionally, with other commanders in chief, particularly the British, in the Orient. In fact, Admiral Upham's fleet consisted only, of his cruiser flagship, a squadron of destroyers, a squadron of submarines, a few auxiliaries, and some gunboats. The great majority of American warships operated out of U.S. West Coast ports in what was still called simply the U.S. Fleet.
The new arrivals aboard the Augusta, about a hundred officers and men, promptly began giving the Augusta's crew a hard time by making invidious comparisons with the Houston regarding Procedures, efficiency, and cleanliness. The Augusta's officers determined to take the staff members at their words, but that would take some time. Meanwhile they learned one of the
Houston's secrets for keeping immaculate: her officers were using coolie labor to chip and scrape steel decks, to shine the copper piping under the floor plates, and to clean the hard-to-get-at spaces of the ship. The beauty of it all was that the labor cost nothing. It was supplied in exchange for the ship's rubbish, which contained materials the Chinese could use or sell. Of course, in employing foreign labor aboard a warship, the Houston's officers had broken U.S. law and defied naval regulations. It was an outrageous practice, and the Augusta's officers resolved to do exactly the same thing at the earliest possible opportunity.
The function of the Asiatic Fleet flagship was to move up and down the China coast "showing the flag," which meant visiting ports, firing salutes, and exchanging calls with local officials and with officers of foreign vessels. Normally the ship operated out of Shanghai in the spring and autumn, out of Manila in the winter, and out of Tsingtao in the summer.
The families of the married officers generally moved with the flagship, but Mrs. Nimitz varied the plan somewhat. Because Tsingtao was expensive for foreigners and Shanghai is extremely hot in July and August, she and her girls spent the summer of 1934 in the little town of Unzen, Japan, in the hills behind Nagasaki. Mrs. Nimitz remained in Shanghai in the winter of 1934-1935 rather than take Nancy out of the Shanghai American School, where she was doing well. When the Augusta and Mrs. Nimitz were in the same port,
Captain Nimitz lived partly afloat, partly ashore with his family. He played a good deal of tennis at such times and led a lively social life. The Nimitzes were particularly fond of having the junior officers, most of whom were bachelors, in to dinner, and Mrs. Nimitz mothered them as she had her husband's students at the University of California.
Under Captain Nimitz's command the Augusta was rapidly transformed from a slovenly tub into a crack and gleaming ship. Witnesses give most of the credit for the transformation to Nimitz himself, though certainly he could not have achieved it without a capable crew. However, the crew too was partly Nimitz's creation, for he never hesitated to replace an officer or enlisted man who did not measure up, and he had friends in Washington who saw to it that he got the sort of replacements he wanted. Nimitz made it clear that he expected every member of the crew to do his best. He did not broadcast his expectations but conveyed them subtly and individually to his officers, all of whom he quickly learned to know personally, and through the officers to his enlisted men. It was a demand for excellence, not for Nimitz's sake, and not altogether for the sake of the ship or the navy, but above all for the sake of the men themselves and their own pride and self-fulfillment.
In his drive to get his ship and crew into top condition, Captain Nimitz first zeroed in on his junior officers, particularly the six ensigns, all from the Naval Academy classes of I931 and 1932. They, at least, were fresh from more than a year's sea duty, and he was determined as quickly as possible to make them efficient ship handlers and effective division officers.
A principle of Nimitz's training plan was to give every man as much responsibility as he could handle, which was often a great deal more than the man thought he was capable of handling. By increasing the competence of his junior officers, he could give them responsibilities their immediate seniors were exercising and thus push the latter into higher responsibilities until, It list, he himself could confine his activities to those broad areas of command, administration, and ceremony that only he, as captain, could carry out. It was Nimitz's abiding rule that he should never do anything his juniors could do, least of all mere ship handling. "Conning the ship," he said, "is ensigns' work."
In the early days of his command on the China Station, Nimitz from time to time had a box thrown overboard and then, under his personal supervision, required the junior officers to take turns bringing the ship alongside it as if it were a wharf. During these maneuvers he never raised his voice. If an ensign made a particularly egregious blunder, he might say, "Well, if I were doing it, I would have done it this way."
He next shifted from make-believe to the real thing. He kept a record and made sure that each of the junior officers had experience in entering and leaving harbors. An ensign or a lieutenant, junior grade, might hear himself ordered by, name over the loudspeaker to report to the bridge, There Captain Nimitz would say, "Mr. So-and-so, take the ship and get her under way," or "Take the ship and bring her to anchor."
Once, coming in, Ensign Odale D. ("Muddy") Waters got rattled and failed to reduce speed. As a result he had to back the ship full power and lay out 90 fathoms of chain before he got her stopped, then had to heave back to 6o fathoms. Captain Nimitz remained silent until the ship was secure. Then he said, "Waters, you know What you did wrong, don't you?"
"Yes, sir, I certainly do," replied Waters. "I came in too fast." "That's fine," said Nimitz, and that was the end of that.
Even in his own mistakes, Nimitz found lessons for his officers. Once in a strong, blustery wind the Augusta, requiring fuel, drew alongside the anchored oiler Pecos. In the circumstances and in that early period of the cruise, Nimitz had taken the conn himself.
"Another perfect Nimitz landing," remarked the acting first lieutenant, Lieutenant E. M. ("Tommy") Thompson, to the chief boatswain.
I had all lines out," recalled Thompson, "when suddenly the wind shifted, catching the Augusta on the off bow and causing her to swing into the Pecos. The Augusta's high-flaring bow proceeded to cut into the bridge structure and lifeboat davits of the Pecos. Captain Nimitz shouted from the bridge, 'Let go of everything, and I'll back away.'
"A little shaken by the experience," Thompson continued, "I shouted a reply that reverberated all the way back to the fantail, 'But, Captain, you can't back- away. Your anchor is in the Pecos.'
"'What do you propose to do?", queried the captain.
"'Let me take a strain on the number line,' I answered.
'You've got it,' came back the quick retort. I took a strain on the number 3 line and, perhaps with the fortunate help of a little shift of wind and a smidgen of divine guidance too, the Augusta swung clear, much in our relief and amazement. We had no more than secured alongside when the captain sent for me. 'Thompson, what did I do wrong?' he snapped.
" 'Well, sir.' I replied, 'you were overconfident and misjudged the effect the wind would have on a ship riding lightly on the water.'
"'That is right,' he agreed. 'Now, Thompson, what should I have done"
"Keeping the dialogue moving quickly, I answered, 'Probably the safe thing to have done, sir, would have been to have gone ahead, drop the starboard anchor, and to have, backed down on it.'
"'That's right,"' said Captain Nimitz, pointing his finger at me, 'and, Thompson, don't you ever forget it! ' "
Captain Nimitz began gunnery practice shortly after his ship reached Manila. For the exercises the Augusta steamed over to Subic Bay and operated from there into the South China Sea, where target services were available for antiaircraft is well as surface guns. Available also was recording equipment to evaluate performances. Nimitz was one of the few American commanders at that time who insisted on night, as well as day, target practice. Because of the Augusta's recent arrival in the Orient and her future cruising plans, she had to compress two gunnery-year training cycles into a short period. Nevertheless. she won the gunnery trophy for 1934.
The Augusta, also won the Iron Man in athletics for cruisers. From the beginning Nimitz had encouraged his officers to get plenty of exercise and saw, to it that teams were organized in various sports. One team even learned rugby in order to challenge the British at their own game. They did and won. Nimitz himself favored tennis and often played with his officers, for the sake of his own fitness as well as theirs.
Captain Nimitz was quick to capitalize on anybody's special talents. For example, when he learned that Junior Lay had won the sextant at the Naval Academy for standing number one in the navigation class, he promptly made him assistant navigator. Ensign J. Wilson ("Bill") Leverton, while officer of the deck one night, sent the bugler to bed and, to show off, blew tattoo and taps himself. It was a virtuoso performance, for Leverton had been bugling since his early, Boy Scout days and had once been selected to play taps over the tomb of the unknown soldier in Washington. Nimitz sent for Leverton. "You're a fine bugler!" he said. "I tell you what. The rest of the buglers around here are not so good. I'll give you a month to make them just as good."
"So, damn it," recalls Leverton, "I had to get all of the buglers-there were only three or four of them-together and practice every day. Well that got to be rather noisy. They began to get me further and further aft and pretty soon we were practicing down in the steering engine room. Every day for an hour I'd practice with those darn buglers."
In the China ports, Captain Nimitz arranged a series of seminars to inform his officers about China. The officers would assemble in the boardroom of the Augusta to hear lectures, which would be followed by a discussion period. Among the speakers Nimitz secured were Nelson Johnson, U.S. minister and, later, first U.S. ambassador to China, Julian Arnold, U.S. commercial attaché, and the Republic of China's ministers of education and of finance, both of whom spoke English.
These sessions, which were Captain Nimitz's own idea and unheard-of in other vessels, aroused such interest in China among the Augusta's officers that most of them devoted their leave periods to travel into the interior of the country. Many, including Admiral Upham and Captain Nimitz, together with their families, visited Peking. Some officers went as far north as Harbin, Manchuria, and returned to their cruiser via Korea by train and ship.
In June 1934 the Augusta paid a visit to Japan, arriving off Yokohama on the 4th. A great deal of powder was fired off that afternoon in the name of protocol: 17 guns for the Japanese light carrier Hosho, a 21-gun national salute for the Japanese battleship Hiei, 17 guns for Admiral Osami Nagano, and I7 for the French cruiser Primauguet. All salutes were duly returned.
The arrival of the Augusta in Tokyo Bay coincided with the death of Fleet Admiral Togo, victor over the Russian fleet at Tsushima in I905. Nimitz, it will be recalled, in his first visit to Japan had met and admired Togo. On the day, of the public funeral, June 5, the several foreign warships in Tokyo Bay sent delegations ashore to march in the procession. The Augusta sent a company of her most impressive bluejackets and marines, all over six feet tall. In the bay, the alien ships flew, their own colors and the Japanese ensign at half-mast and fired 19 guns at one-minute intervals in honor of the dead Admiral. Both Upham and Nimitz attended the service ashore. The next day they were present it the Oriental funeral rites, held in Togo's home. Situated in the forest outside Tokyo, the home was a simple five-room cottage, which the Japanese later converted into a beautiful and imposing national shrine.
That afternoon Captain Nimitz's serenity underwent a severe strain. The Republic of China ship Ning Hai, wearing a rear admiral's flag, stood in to Tokyo Bay. She and the Hiei properly exchanged gun salutes, but the atmosphere was tense because, as everyone present knew, China and Japan were enemies observing a temporary truce in an undeclared war. As the Ning Hai proceeded up the bay, the Augusta fired a salute of 17 guns. At the first gun, is custom required, a flag was broken at the Augusta's fore. Her officers, looking up, were dumbfounded to behold not a Chinese but a Japanese flag. The flag, it seems, had the word Chinese stenciled on its border, a mistake made at the factory, but there was no excuse for the signalman and the officer of the deck confusing the rising sun of Japan's flag with the multicolored stripes of the Chinese, which then, hid seen every day in Shanghai on dozens of ships and buildings.
As soon is the 17-gun salute had been completed, another salute was fired with the Chinese flag at the fore. But the damage had been done. Both the Japanese and the Chinese were insulted, and the Augusta had been made to look ridiculous to every ship in the bay. An officer from the Augusta was promptly dispatched to both the Hiei and the Ning Hai to apologize and explain the mistake.
Captain Nimitz's calm was renowned, but this was too much. He instantly sent for the signalman and for the officer of the deck, Lieutenant (j.g.) Stuart McAfee, and, contrary to his custom, denounced them and their stupidity in choice words that carried far and wide. He then banished them from the bridge with orders never under any, circumstances to return. Shortly afterward Lieutenant McAfee's application to enter the Supply Corps was approved. "It's a good thing," he observed, "because I think Captain Nimitz would have thrown me overboard."
On the way back to China, the Augusta on June 13 put into Kobe, Japan. Coincidentally, the liner President Johnson touched at the port at the same time. Aboard was Kate Nimitz, who had recently graduated from the University of California and was en route to China to join her mother and her sisters. At a reception aboard the Augusta she met Junior Lay, by then a lieutenant, junior grade. It is not recorded that they made any particular impression on each other. Certainly no one could have prophesied that Miss Nimitz would eventually become Mrs. Lay.
The Augusta reached Tsingtao on June 18. Not long afterward Captain Nimitz held mast, to assign punishment for minor infractions. One of Muddy Waters' men, a fire-controlman, third class, named Woolley, something of a character, was in trouble. While on shore-patrol duty he had been caught by his officer half-undressed in the upstairs apartment of a cabaret girl. He was charged with being out of uniform and with dereliction of duty while on shore patrol.
"Woolley," said Captain Nimitz sternly, "what have you got to say for yourself?"
"Well, Captain, it was this way," replied Woolley with great earnestness. "I was on shore patrol there and I was walking down the street and I snagged my uniform and tore it. I know that when you're on shore patrol you're supposed to he dressed completely in every way, and a snagged uniform is a very bad thing for anybody on shore patrol to have. This young lady happened to be a friend of mine and she offered, if I would come up to her room, to sew, up the snag in my, uniform. So that was why I was there with my jumper off. She sewed it up and that is why I was there."
"Captain Nimitz could hardly keep from laughing," Waters recalled, "but you could see that he thought that this was such an ingenious answer and good story that he had to give the man credit for it, so he dismissed the case."
At another mast one of marine Lieutenant Lewis Puller's men was called up. On such occasions the accused's division officer stood beside his man and usually opened with a good word for him, such as, "Captain, this man, who has been accused of such-and-such, has done a good job. He's a reliable man aboard ship. He sometimes gets into trouble ashore, but generally he behaves himself and is a credit to the ship."
Puller's man was charged with being asleep on watch. Captain Nimitz asked if Puller had any comment. To the surprise of Nimitz and everyone else, Puller shot back, "I certainly do, Captain. Get rid of the son of I bitch. He's not a marine if he goes to sleep on watch. I never want to see him again."
This reply, so utterly contrary to the usual pattern, left Captain Nimitz little choice but to court-martial the man. Lieutenant Puller was the Augusta's third marine commander during Nimitz's command, the other two having been dismissed as unsatisfactory. He won the approval of Nimitz, who reported, "The work of Lieutenant Puller on board this vessel his been excellent." He later won on fame on Guadalcanal as Colonel "Chesty" Puller and finally, retired as a lieutenant general, one of the most illustrious marines in the history of the corps and the subject of Burke Davis's biography, Marine!
In the autumn of I934 the Augusta made a good-will voyage to Australia for the specific purpose of joining the citizens of Melbourne in celebrating their centennial. At all the ports the cruiser visited-Sidney, Melbourne, and Fremantle-the hospitality of the people reached such fantastic levels that Nimitz had to have a chart posted in the wardroom to enable his officers to accept as many, invitations as possible. When not on duty, they were each scheduled for four social calls a day.
The return voyage carried the Augusta up through the Netherlands East Indies, touching at ports in Java, Bali, Celebes, and Borneo, and thence via the southern Philippines to Manila, where the cruiser arrived on December 23. When inspection followed a few days later, officers in ships and on stations in the Manila Bay area predicted that the Augusta, because of the long voyage she had just completed, would be found dirty and rated unsatisfactory. Instead she won an "outstanding."
That winter the Augusta again made a clean sweep of first-place awards in athletics and gunnery. Her carpenters were obliged to build I new, case to hold all her trophies. Said Waters, "We were tops in everything we did. We were right at the top. It was a tremendous ship and a great experience." Vice Admiral Lloyd M. Mustin, recalling many years later his tour as a junior officer with Nimitz, added: "I think one can safely say that the Augusta had reached an absolutely, unheard-of level of high morale, high pride, and competence at every, level, down to the lowliest mess cook."
In Shanghai Mrs. Nimitz and her daughters were living in the French Concession. Because little Mary had a conscientious Chinese amah, Mrs. Nimitz could bus), herself at painting in oils, at which she was gifted. Nancy was taking high-school classes at the American School. Kate was attending Farmer's Commercial College for Young Ladies. Her New England mother had insisted on her enrolling in a business course because, as she said, "an idle mind is the devil's workshops
As always, Captain and Mrs. Nimitz kept in virtual daily correspondence.
Because Nimitz's tour in the Augusta was to come to an end in the spring of 1935, they decided to send Kate and Nancy back to the United States, to the home of their Massachusetts grandparents, so that Nancy could have an unbroken second semester in high school. The girls left Shanghai in mid-February 1935 aboard the liner President Pierce. The Augusta arrived in Shanghai in March. The Nimitzes arranged to return to the United States in the liner President Lincoln.
The evening before Nimitz's relief by Captain Felix Gygax, the officers of the Augusta rented a whole club in Shanghai to give Nimitz a farewell party. There were a dinner and dancing but, above all, there were speeches of appreciation for the departing captain. It was an emotional send-off that brought tears to Nimitz's eyes. Muddy Waters called it "one of the greatest events I've ever gone to."
The next day, April 12, 1935, the crew of the Augusta was mustered on the quarterdeck. At 1:30 p.m. Captain Gygax formally relieved Captain Nimitz. When Nimitz started down the gangway, he was astonished and delighted to see awaiting him a whaleboat manned by twelve junior officers in frock coats, gold-striped trousers, epaulettes, and cocked hats, prepared to row him upriver to the President Lincoln, in which Mrs. Nimitz and Mary were waiting. Nimitz, acclaimed honorary coxswain, took the tiller and they rowed him to his ship.
When the whaleboat reached the liner, Captain Nimitz insisted that the oarsmen secure the boat and come aboard to have a drink with him. On their departure, they gave their former captain three cheers. This was not the end of their association with Nimitz. He retained a lifelong interest in these young men and took pleasure in advancing their careers. Some of them served with him again later, several made flag rank, and all, whenever opportunity presented, called on the Nimitzes to pay their respects. Chester and Catherine came to regard some of them almost as their own sons.