The Nimitz Museum
History of WWII south Pacific Campaign
Fredericksburg, Texas
March 23, 2005
If
you were traveling east on I-10 heading for Austin, TX, and wanted the shortest
way, you could take US 290 straight into the Capital. In doing so you
would pass through, Fredericksburg, one of those great "out of the way" places, often
found by those travelers who choose a road less traveled. We decided to
hang out here for a week and absorb the Germanic flavor of the town. It is
for sure, a tourist town, with quaint shops and loads of ever-fattening German restaurants,
and oh, that wonderful imported German beer, thick, dark and mellow. At
the far end of town stands a grand old house with a wonderful history and one
time home of one of America's favorite sons. The Nimitz hotel was purchased by
Charles Henry Nimitz, Sr. in 1855. By 1860 the Nimitz hotel was established,
hosting frontier travelers and providing a home for the large Nimitz family.
Expanded in the 1870 to feature a steamboat-shaped facade, the hotel was a
center for community activities. It was sold by the family in 1926 and
underwent major alternations. In 
1964
it became a museum honoring fleet admiral Chester W. Nimitz and those who served
with him in World War II. Now again under restoration, the steamboat-shaped facade was getting a face lift and
the entrance which included the Admiral
Nimitz museum was closed. However, the museum was unaffected and
open. The inside was a eclectic mixture of information on the War in the
Pacific. We took chairs in the little round theater and watched the
large electronic map while we listened to a description of the overview of the
entire War. Island hopping from Tarawa to the final invasion of Okinawa.
Done in beaded lights, the display brought four years of confusion over such
names as Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima into a logical progression of events. There
were both wall board displays and actual objects of
war. One such impressive item was a 
Japanese
mini-sub of the type used in the attack of Pearl Harbor. On December 22,
1941, just 16 days after the devastating attack at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese
XIV
Army invaded Luzon in the Philippians. The combined
American and Filipino forces under General Douglas MacArthur were unable to halt
the Japanese The Philippine capital of Manila was quickly taken.
MacArthur's troops and thousands of civilian refugees retreated into the jungles
of the rugged Bataan Peninsula and to the heavily fortified island base of
Corregidor. Here the Allies made heroic stands despite shortages of food,
fuel medicine and ammunition. After bitter fighting, cut off from supplies
reinforcements, and hope of relief, more than 76,000 Americans and Filipino
troops surrendered on April 9th 1942. It is considered the worst defeat in
US military history. One wall display told the
forgotten story of the Allied civilians caught 
up in a war which moved faster
than they could. American, British, Dutch and other Allied civilians caught
behind Japanese lines during World War II were treated only slightly better than
the prisoners of war.
At no point was treatment by Japanese guards in
accordance with international law. Though the Geneva Convention's rules
concerning prisoners of war applied to civilians, Japan routinely ignored them.
Once third of all women and
one half of all men interned by Japan died in the camps, mostly from lack of
medicines and nourishment. As we wandered through the remainder of the building
I came around a corner and had to smile. There was a whole wall dedicated
to the famous 503 parachute division, for which my own father had been a battalion
commander. I had spent many an evening sitting on the floor in the middle
of a group of men who had dropped by and were telling war stories. Tales
of heroism and adventure. Unfortunately my father's war
adventures ended in late 1944 on the little
island of Noemfoor
north of New
Guinea, when a shell burst sent shrapnel into his left chest. Though
seriously injured and disabled for the rest of his life, he lived on for another
50 years. He was quite popular with his men and they took every
opportunity to stop by and sit around reliving the good old day. I
searched the board quite thoroughly but could find no mention of the famed 462nd
Parachute Field Artillery Battalion. A door at the back of the building took
us out into the sun light and more heavy equipment including tanks. They
had built a mock battlefield which on occasions is the scene for reenactments.
It was all quite real looking and we were free to walk around and feel or touch
everything. Many of the items had small placards explaining what we were
looking at such as the LVT-4 known as the
water buffalo. There were 3 types: those that discharged from the front, others from the back and some built solid
with troops jumping over the side. It could hold up to 24 men. From
the battlefield, it was several blocks to the last remaining building which
housed even larger items. There was a fighter plane and some artillery
pieces and the one item that made the walk worth while. A
full size PT
boat, similar to the famous PT-109 of Kennedy fame. I was surprised, the
PT boat was quite a bit bigger than I had pictured it. Slick and built for
speed, these ships must have been frightening things coming at you at top
speed. And so it was that we found this gem in a small town in central
Texas. I was quite happy with it.
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