Jay and Dave make interesting points re Nimitz’ mindset –could have been ‘expecting defeat’ in the way the sheriff in “High Noon” was as the film made clear pretty sure he was a goner, and even had ample justification to quit the fight, in Grace Kelly his new wife wanting him to leave town with her while there was still time, as well as in the townsfolk frozen into helpless passivity by the clock ticking away toward the arrival of the killer. But he stayed and fought because he just could not do otherwise, he himself didn’t understand why.

re Eggplant’s ‘Hitler declared on USA so we had no choice’, true but long before his declaration we did have a choice; ‘arsenal of democracy’, lend lease and USN escorts of convoys triggered the declaration–not to mention of course the surprise (to hitler, too as you say) attack on Pearl by the other hub of the axis. but still, with zero prospect of German boots on USA soil, our effort in Europe was morally different than USSR’s. we could’ve opted for a vastly cheaper (in blood & treasure) sitzkrieg indefinitely. And a long year and a half before Normandy, 8th AAF was locked into that incredibly fierce and bloody air offensive over the continent. It does not seem possible to’ve so quickly come across the vast Atlantic to put 1000 four-engine bombers and 1000 fighter escorts in the air over Germany almost daily but that’s what happened. That was ‘heavy lifting’ that wore down Germany’s war-making power at least arguably as much as the Red Army’s chewing up German divisions on the eastern front, but since it involved boots in the air and not on the ground it is often shorted in memory. I think 8th AAF alone had 80,000 highly trained airmen KIA, and many more POWs (my dad among those, having had his B-17E shot down on the last day of Big Week in February 1944).