Volume 15 , Issue 25

Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, USN

This last weekend while we were on the road, we journeyed through Fredericksburg, Texas, and took an hour walking around the Main downtown business district, and found the birthplace of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, USN.

As the historical marker reads the typical early Fredericksburg home built 1866 by Carl Basse, property of the Henke family since 1873. Heinrich Henke, early settler, Confederate freighter, had butcher counter on front porch; meat processing was done in back yard; there the horses that pulled meat vending cart were stabled. A shop later was built on foundation of stone walls surrounding lot.

Henke and his wife Dorothea (nee Weirich) added the long dining room and kitchen with sloped roof to accommodate their twelve children. many of their furnishings are preserved by Udo Henke, a descendant.

In small room to rear of front bedroom, on February 24, 1885, their daughter Anna Henke Nimitz, gave birth to Chester William Nimitz, destined to command the greatest Naval Armada in history.

A 1905 honor graduate of the U.S. Naval academy, Nimitz was chief of staff to commander, Atlantic submarine fleet, W.W.I. installed first Naval ROTC unit in U.S. Navy, 1926; Selected Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet after attack on Pearl Harbor; Appointed Fleet Admiral, U. S. Navy, 1944. As Representative of the U. S. he signed Japanese surrender documents on his flagship, USS Missouri September 2, 1945 in Tokyo Bay. Admiral Nimitz died in San Francisco on February 20, 1966.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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