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Discipline is simply the art of making the soldiers fear their officers more than the enemy.

-- Helvetius

Pacific Fleet Change of Command, 31 December 1941

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The post-Pearl Harbor raid shakeup of the Pacific Fleet's leadership, begun on 17 December 1941 when Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox relieved Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and temporarily replaced him with Vice Admiral William S. Pye, was completed on the last day of the year. On the morning of 31 December, in ceremonies on board USS Grayling (SS-209) at Pearl Harbor Submarine Base, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz took over command of the Pacific Fleet from Pye and awarded medals to veterans of early combat.

Admiral Nimitz, who had arrived at Pearl Harbor on Christmas day after a seven-day train and aircraft trip from Washington, D.C., had spent another six days in conferences and briefings on the dismal war situation and sobering condition of his new command. One of Nature's gentlemen, Nimitz had sympathethically told the disheartened Admiral Kimmel that "The same thing could have happened to anyone". After the change of command ceremony, Nimitz lifted the spirits of the Fleet's existing staff members by expressing his full confidence in them and retaining them all to maintain continuity during what were certain to be very difficult times ahead.

At the Submarine Base immediately following the ceremony aboard Grayling, Nimitz had briefly addressed a gathering of senior officers, including his immediate predecessors. Stating that "We have taken a tremendous wallop ... but I have no doubt of the ultimate outcome", he summarized his immediate plans to "Bide your time, keep your powder dry, and take advantage of the opportunity when it's offered." That statement, intended for public consumption and therefore deliberately ambiguous, was nevertheless a reasonably accurate indication of the U.S. Navy's strategy for the Pacific War's next few months, a time to be spent hurting the enemy where possible while rebuilding strength and confidence for an inevitably very long struggle.

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