Pearl Harbor Leadership Quotes

Well more than two thirds of the press releases from Douglas MacArthur's command reference only one person – himself.

Neoconservatives have written about “getting lucky” with a “Pearl Harbor event.” Michael Ledeen wrote for example in his 1999 book Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: “Of course, we can always get lucky. Stunning events from outside can providently awaken the enterprise from its growing torpor, and demonstrate the need for renewal, as the devastating Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 so effectively aroused the United States from its soothing dreams of permanent neutrality….” Then the 9/11 attack aroused war fever against Muslims and Arabs in the Middle East. This is precisely the reason that “false flags” are popular tools for those who see war as noble and heroic in their effort to promote an agenda that is never noble but always self-serving. And there’s nothing heroic about chickenhawks, of which there are many.

As it pulled away from the wreckage, he stood up to look back at the sinking plane. The coxswain shouted at him: “Sit down, you!” Then, realizing who it was, he tried to apologize, but Nimitz told the coxswain that he was absolutely correct, and obediently sat.

The importance of Marshall’s pre–Pearl Harbor leadership is impossible to ignore. To cite one dynamic example, fully three-quarters (more than 45,000) of the Army’s lieutenants and captains who fought in all theaters of World War II were graduates of the Officer Candidate Schools he fought so hard to establish before the United States entered the war, in the face of strong opposition from both Roosevelt and Stimson.

The admiral was famously unflappable, but found the attack on Pearl Harbor a shattering experience. Spruance revealed this only to his wife and daughter, then waited anxiously for Admiral Chester Nimitz to take over as CincPac—Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet. After the obscenity at Pearl, America’s Pacific Fleet leadership was demoralized. Spruance sensed that Nimitz would inject some sorely needed fighting spirit, and he was right. Nimitz proved bold, aggressive, confident. Energized, the Pacific fleet began to sortie out and fight back. Spruance was elated.

The leader who awaits perfection of plans, material, or training, will wait in vain,” he wrote, “and in the end will yield the victory to him who employs the tools at hand with the greatest vigor.” In the last week of May 1942,

The country today bears striking similarity to the days leading up to Pearl Harbor. Our workforce drags aslumber. The primary focus of the majority of the national workforce prioritizes maximizing time off and contributing as little as required. Always in pursuit of that external motivation. Experiencing resentment rather than satisfaction. Why does it have to be that way? Why does it take a crisis to improve ourselves collectively? And what about on a submarine? Why does it take a war order to recognize the reality of action before consequence?