Admiral Chester Nimitz, the commander of the Pacific Fleet during World War II, became a national hero during the pivotal battle for control of Midway 75 years ago this week, nowhere more than in the Bay Area, where he was a presence before and after the war.

The small but strategic Midway atoll was the target of Japanese invasion forces and Nimitz, planning moves and issuing orders from Pearl Harbor, successfully anticipated and defended against the action. A loss in the battle, which unfolded from June 3 to 7, 1942, and was fought almost entirely in the air, could have decimated what was left of the United States naval strength in the Pacific Theatre after the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. It would also have given Japanese forces a strategic location for possible attacks on the United States.

Instead, the decisive victory that sank four Japanese aircraft carriers allowed the U.S. Navy to go on the offensive and made Nimitz a national name.

Nimitz, named commander of the Pacific Fleet on Dec. 30, 1941, had established the Naval ROTC program at UC Berkeley in the 1920s, and he lived on Santa Barbara Road in Berkeley for several years after the war while continuing his naval duties. Nimitz served on the UC Board of Regents for eight years after the war. He later moved to what is now known as the Nimitz House on Yerba Buena Island in San Francisco Bay, then part of the Treasure Island naval facility. Nimitz died at the house in 1966. The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

East Bay tributes to Nimitz include the Nimitz Freeway (Interstate 880), dedicated in his honor in 1958, and the Nimitz Way, a trail in Tilden Regional Park named for the admiral in 1955. Nimitz frequently took hikes in Tilden, particularly around the Botanic Garden and the roadway at Inspiration Point that would be named for him, and would scatter lupine seeds along the way of his weekly outings.

On Dec. 7, 1964 Nimitz was given the honor of relighting the 1928 aviation beacon atop Mount Diablo, which “went dark Dec. 8, 1941, as part of a West Coast blackout the day after the Pearl Harbor attack,” the Contra Costa Times reported. The beacon is illuminated annually on Pearl Harbor Day.

UC Berkeley annually in 1983 established the Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz Memorial Lectureship, which “annually brings to the University of California at Berkeley a distinguished scholar, professional military person or government official for a series of lectures on specific national security subjects.”

A museum dedicated to Nimitz is part of the Pacific War Museum in his boyhood home of Fredericksburg, Texas.