US Pacific Fleet

After Pearl Harbor the US Pacific Fleet's battle line lay sunk in the mud, but its carriers had survived at sea, and it was on them that Commander in Chief Chester Nimitz built the fleet's recovery. Nimitz turned intelligence into his sharpest weapon: he backed his codebreakers against Washington's wrong guess about Japan's next objective, and gambled his three irreplaceable carriers on their conclusion — an ambush north-east of Midway instead of a scatter into the South Pacific. He also trusted his subordinates: he gave Spruance, a cruiser admiral new to carriers, clear orders and then let him fight the battle his own way. The victory confirmed his style of war — concentration, calculated risk, and signals intelligence in place of superior numbers. Over the next two years the Pacific Fleet advanced from the Coral Sea to Japan's home waters, and Nimitz was promoted to Fleet Admiral in December 1944. His headquarters at Pearl Harbor became the brain of the ocean war, where decrypted traffic, submarine reports and reconnaissance were fused into a single picture of Japanese intentions.