The Japanese Garden of Peace is a peace garden installed at the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas.
The Japanese Garden of Peace is a peace garden installed at the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas.
The Japanese Garden of Peace was designed by Taketora Saita of Tokyo and constructed during 1976 at Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz's boyhood home. The Nimitz home is part of the museum complex which includes the National Museum of the Pacific War. [1] [2] The traditional garden is a gift from the people of Japan to the people of America, part of the reconciliation between the United States and Japan and to honor the friendship between Admiral Nimitz and Admiral Heihachiro Togo. [2] [1] [2]
After construction funds were raised in Japan, Japanese craftsmen traveled to Texas to build the garden. [2] The finished, $400,000 renovation was opened and dedicated on the 130th founding of Fredericksburg, May 8, 1976. [2] The Admiral Nimitz Foundation is a member of the North American Japanese Garden Association and employs a full-time, properly trained gardener who maintains the facility. [2]
The National Museum of the Pacific War’s evocative character of war’s destruction and death purposefully stands in juxtaposition of the garden’s quiet setting. [3] Taketora remarked, "It is my hope that as the Admiral Nimitz Park is visited by people from all parts of the world, it will be praised as a small oasis of cool, green beauty in Texas. The prayers of many people, those who gave money as well as those who had a part in building the garden, are directed to this objective." [3]
There are many elements in the garden which contain symbolic meaning. [2] Water features represent such notions as loyalty, purifying actions, and one heart. [2] [3] These representations are achieved through the arrangement and shapes of the various elements. [3] An example of this technique is Taketora’s use of field stones he found in Fredericksburg: he mingled them with various plantings on a furrowed expanse of white pebbles. The furrowed pebbles are to remind one of Pacific Ocean waves and to represent the Pacific Ocean’s joining of Japan and the United States. [3] Pacific islands are symbolized with the field stones. [3]
The locally sourced field stones are also evidence of Taketora’s desire to not overwhelm the garden with Japanese influences. [3] He muted that influence in various ways, including planting a mix of American grown trees which were given by Fredericksburg residents. [3]
A lone, square meditation structure with the qualities of an early 1900s Taisho Era house sits at one end of the park. It is similar to one in the city of Maizuru, Japan. It includes traditional shoji screens and joinery methods done without nails. [3] At one time, the original structure in Maizuru was owned by Admiral Marquis Togo Heihachiro of the Imperial Japanese Navy. [3]
Chester William Nimitz was a fleet admiral in the United States Navy. He played a major role in the naval history of World War II as Commander in Chief, US Pacific Fleet, and Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas, commanding Allied air, land, and sea forces during World War II.
Gillespie County is a county located on the Edwards Plateau in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 26,725. The county seat is Fredericksburg. It is located in the heart of the rural Texas Hill Country in Central Texas. Gillespie is named for Robert Addison Gillespie, a soldier in the Mexican–American War. It is known as the birthplace of 36th president of the United States of America Lyndon B. Johnson.
Fredericksburg is a city in and the seat of Gillespie County, Texas, United States. As of the 2020 Census, this city had a population of 10,875.
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Nimitz may refer to:
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Togo is a country in West Africa.
Stepan Osipovich Makarov was a Russian vice-admiral, commander in the Imperial Russian Navy, oceanographer, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and author of several books. He was a pioneer of insubmersibility theory, and developer of a Cyrillic-based semaphore alphabet. A proponent of icebreaker use, he supervised the first ever polar icebreaker construction. Makarov also designed several ships.
BaronYashiro Rokurō was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy and Navy Minister, succeeding the last of the Satsuma-era naval leaders of the early Meiji period.
The National Museum of the Pacific War is located in Fredericksburg, Texas, the boyhood home of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz. Nimitz served as commander in chief, United States Pacific Fleet (CinCPAC), and was soon afterward named commander in chief, Pacific Ocean Areas, during World War II. The six-acre site includes the Admiral Nimitz Museum, which is housed in the old Nimitz Hotel and tells the story of Nimitz beginning with his life as a young boy through his naval career as well as the evolution of the old hotel.
HA. 19 is a historic Imperial Japanese Navy Type A Kō-hyōteki-class midget submarine that was part of the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. The submarine's crew was ordered to enter Pearl Harbor, attack the moored American warships with its two torpedoes and then scuttle her with explosives. However, the crew was unable to enter the harbor due to navigational difficulties, and the submarine ran aground and was captured by American forces.
Maizuru Naval District was one of four main administrative districts of the pre-war Imperial Japanese Navy. Its territory included the entire Sea of Japan coastline from northern Kyūshū to western Hokkaidō.
David Mekaele Akui was an American soldier who became famous for capturing the first Japanese prisoner of war in World War II. At the time, Akui was a corporal in Company G, 298th Infantry Regiment of the Hawaii National Guard.
Admiral Arima Ryōkitsu was a career naval officer in the Imperial Japanese Navy during Meiji and Taishō periods.
The Homesite of John O. Meusebach is located at Loyal Valley in Mason County, Texas, 21 miles (34 km) north of Fredericksburg and 18 miles (29 km) southeast of the city of Mason, on U.S. Highway 87 to right-of-way at the intersection of US 87 and RM 2242. Meusebach moved to the property in 1869, after a tornado destroyed his family home in Comal County.
Charles Henry Nimitz was born in Bremen, Germany, the son of a merchant seaman. Like his father before him, he was already a veteran seaman before the Nimitz family immigrated to South Carolina in the early 1840s, and later became part of the Adelsverein colonization experiment in the newly annexed state of Texas. He was the grandfather of, and role model for, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz. In 1852, he built the Nimitz Hotel in Fredericksburg, Texas, in the United States. The hotel he built now houses the National Museum of the Pacific War. The Nimitz Hotel was designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1989, Marker number 10089. Nimitz was elected to the Twenty-second Texas Legislature in 1890, representing Gillespie, Comal and Blanco counties, which constituted District 89.
Rear Admiral John Hubbard was an officer in the United States Navy. He fought in the Spanish–American War, played a prominent role in the independence of Panama from Colombia in 1903, and served as Commander-in-Chief of the United States Asiatic Fleet.
