Admiral on 19 December 1944—sailed his flagship, the
battleship South Dakota, into Tokyo Bay and, on board
the Missouri, signed the papers of Japan’s surrender as the
official U.S. representative (2 September 1945).
Following the war, Nimitz succeeded Admiral Er-
nest King as chief of naval operations (CNO). In his two
years as CNO, Nimitz tried to remold the United States
Navy to adapt to the cold war, away from the Second
World War organization. On 15 December 1947, he re-
signed as CNO and retired to California. In his last 20
years, he wrote Sea Power: A Naval History with E. B.
Potter (1960). After undergoing surgery in late 1965, he
came down with pneumonia and died on 20 February
- He was buried with full military honors in Golden
Gate National Cemetery in San Francisco, California.
Chester Nimitz is remembered for his leadership
during the darkest days of the Second World War for the
United States. With limited resources, including those
not destroyed by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, he de-
vised a strategy of resisting and delaying the enemy until
the American military could build up forces to take the
war to the Japanese and win strategic victories at Mid-
way and in the South Pacific islands. His reliance on air-
craft carriers to accomplish this, the first time they had
been used to such effect, paved the way for current naval
thinking and policy.
References: Potter, Elmer Belmont, Nimitz (Annapolis,
Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1976); Brink, Randall, Nimitz:
The Man and His Wars (New York: D. I. Fine Books/Dut-
ton, 1996); “Nimitz, Chester William,” in Brassey’s En-
cyclopedia of Military History and Biography, edited by
Franklin D. Margiotta (Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s,
1994), 703–707; Driskill, Frank A., Admiral of the Hills:
Chester W. Nimitz (Austin, Tex.: Eakin Press, 1983); Hoyt,
Edwin Palmer, How They Won the War in the Pacific: Nim-
itz and his Admirals (New York: Weybright and Talley,
1970); North, Bruce, “Nimitz, Chester William,” in En-
cyclopedia of American War Heroes (New York: Checkmark
Books: 2002), 184–185.
Nivelle, Robert-Georges (1856–1924) French
general
Robert Nivelle was born in the village of Tulle in Cor-
rèze, France, on 15 October 1856. He entered the Poly-
technic, or special school, in Paris in 1876, but two years
later he left to join the French army, where he was as-
signed to an artillery unit. In 1990, he was sent to China
to fight in the Boxer Rebellion, and he subsequently
served in the French wars in Algeria.
In 1914, when the First World War broke out, Niv-
elle was serving as the commander of the 5th French Ar-
tillery in Besançon, France. He was named as a general
of brigade on 24 October 1914 and saw action on the
western front during the horrific early days of the war in
1914 and 1915. In January 1915, he led French forces
in the fight to capture Quesnevières. He was promoted
to be the head of the III Corps on 23 December 1915,
and in March 1916 he was assigned to the defense of the
French strong point, the enormous fortress of Verdun.
Nivelle impressed Allied commanders with his defense
of the citadel, and on 2 May 1916 he was named as the
successor to the French Second Army commander, Gen-
eral Henri Pétain. When the Germans launched their
main attack on Verdun, Nivelle stated unequivocally, “Ils
ne passeront pas.” (“They shall not pass.”) Successful in
holding Verdun, Nivelle was named as commander of all
French forces in the north and northeast on 12 Decem-
ber 1916, succeeding Marshal Joseph Joffre. In spring
1917, he formulated an Allied plan for a massive offen-
sive, intended to break the deadlock of trench warfare.
This plan had the support of the French prime minister,
Aristide Briand, but was opposed by other Allied com-
manders, such as Sir Douglas haig and even Pétain. The
offensive, also called the Nivelle Offensive or the Second
Battle of the Aisne, started on 16 April 1917 and sent
more than 1 million French soldiers against the German
lines, at a loss of 40,000 men the first day alone. Even
though little ground was being made, Nivelle continued
to pour tens of thousands of men into the battle. After
a period of time, the French attacks let up until they
ended on 9 May. In the end, nearly 200,000 French sol-
diers were killed, with untold thousands more wounded.
This was the end for Nivelle: On 15 May 1917, he was
replaced by Pétain as the French commander in chief.
Nivelle’s career was effectively over, and he was
posted to North Africa. Nominated as a member of the
Supreme War Council in 1920, he was retired in 1921.
He died in Paris on 23 March 1924 at the age of 67.
Robert Nivelle, barely remembered today, is known
for sending 200,000 men to their deaths in his attempt nivelle, RobeRt-geoRgeS