Samuel David Dealey
Samuel David Dealey was the commanding officer of a United States Navy submarine killed in action with his crew during World War II. Among American service members, he is among the most decorated for valor during war, receiving the Medal of Honor, the Navy Cross, the Army Distinguished Service Cross, and the Silver Star for his service on the submarine. He was the nephew of George B. Dealey, publisher of the Dallas News and for whom Dealey Plaza is named.
Early life and career
Sam Dealey was born on September 13, 1906, in Dallas, Texas. His mother moved the family temporarily to Santa Monica, California, following his father's death in 1912, returning in time for Sam Dealey to graduate high school in Dallas. He was appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, from Texas and graduated in June 1930. Dealey was commissioned an ensign and reported for sea duty aboard the battleship, where he was promoted in June 1933 to lieutenant. In March 1934, he briefly transferred to the destroyer, then reported that summer for submarine training at the Submarine School, New London, Connecticut. After graduating, he served on board the submarines and. Remaining on sea duty, he reported on board then.In May 1937, he was assigned as an aide to the executive officer at Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida. While there, in June 1938, he was promoted to lieutenant. In the summer of 1939, he was assigned as the executive officer on board the destroyer. In April 1941, he reported to Experimental Division One for duty as the prospective commanding officer of to support at-sea experiments off New London. He commanded S-20 for two years, serving aboard at the United States' entry into World War II.
World War II
When war broke out, Dealey's practical qualifications led to assignment as commanding officer of the new-construction , which he commissioned on December 2, 1942, less than a year after the Attack on Pearl Harbor. After a shakedown off the East Coast, Dealey survived a "blue-on-blue" attack by a Navy patrol bomber in the Caribbean Sea to bring Harder to the Pacific in the spring of 1943.First patrol
Harder left Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on her first war patrol on June 7, 1943, bound for the coast of southern Honshu. In Dealey's first attack on a two-ship enemy convoy late on the night of June 21, the submarine was driven down deep by an aggressive enemy escort and crashed into the muddy bottom – an inauspicious beginning, even though it now appears that one enemy target may have been damaged. Dealey backed the submarine out of the mud, and two nights later had his first real success in torpedoing the Japanese seaplane tender and crippling the enemy ship so badly that it was beached on the Japanese mainland and abandoned as a total loss. Over the next four days, Dealey made seven attacks on three different enemy ship convoys, but post-war analysis credits him only with possible damage to one enemy ship.Second patrol
Harder returned to Midway Island on July 7, 1943 with one of its four diesel engines completely broken down. The submarine was one of twelve Gato boats fitted originally with the troublesome Hooven-Owens-Rentschler engines, whose original design was licensed from the German firm Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg in the 1930s. After some hasty repairs and bearing a generous inventory of spare engine parts, Harder returned to sea for a second war patrol off Honshu in late August. In 14 days it made nine attacks, which netted Dealey five enemy ships sunk for 15,000 tons in the postwar accounting. Once again, the submarine suffered engine problems throughout the patrol but returned safely to Pearl Harbor, via Midway, on October 7, 1943.Third patrol
At the end of October 1943, COMSUBPAC, Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood, ordered Harder,, and to the Marianas as a submarine wolfpack to attack Japanese shipping in preparation for the invasion of Tarawa. At that stage of the war, "coordinated operations" among submarines were still hampered by poor communications. Thus, after collaborating with Pargo in attacking an enemy freighter on October 12 – with results never clearly established – and sinking a small enemy minesweeper with gunfire that night, Dealey was soon separated from the rest and operating independently. On November 19, he picked up an enemy convoy of three large Japanese freighters with accompanying escorts north of the Marianas and positioned for an attack, altogether firing ten torpedoes in his first attempt, scoring hits on two enemy targets. Driven below by the enemy escort ships, Dealey surfaced later that night to chase the enemy freighter that had managed to escape undamaged. Eventually firing 11 more torpedoes at the fugitive ship for two hits and four circular runs – then driven off by defensive gunfire from the tenacious Japanese gunners – Dealey broke off the engagement and returned to Pearl Harbor because of lack of torpedoes. Later, it was established all three enemy ships had sunk, the third – Nikko Maru – late that night, giving Dealey and Harder a total of four enemy ships sunk for their third war patrol. Once again, however, one of Harders HOR engines had failed completely, and the other three engines were kept running only by cannibalizing the fourth engine. Thus, shortly after the submarine arrived at Hawaii on November 30, Harder was sent back to Mare Island to be re-engined with General Motors diesel engines.Fourth patrol
Dealey brought Harder back to Pearl Harbor in late February 1944 and took her out for her fourth war patrol on March 16, 1944, accompanied by. Initially assigned lifeguard duty for downed U.S. aviators in the western Caroline Islands, Harder on April 1 was sent to rescue an injured navy pilot on a small enemy-held island just west of Woleai, which had been hit that day by an American aircraft carrier strike. Under an umbrella of friendly air cover, Dealey nosed Harder toward the beach until he could ground the bow up against the encircling reef and hold it there by working both screws. Then, in the face of Japanese sniper fire only partially suppressed by the circling aircraft, a rubber boat was sent in to retrieve the navy pilot, Ensign John Galvin, who was brought to safety in what soon became a legendary rescue. As Blair describes it:By the time Harder got to the reported position, the aviator, Ensign John R. Galvin, was already stranded high and dry on the beach. Dealey lay alongside a reef. Dealey's third officer, Samuel Moore Logan, and two volunteers jumped in the water with a rubber raft, secured to Harder by a line. They fought their way through the surf and coral to the island and picked up Ensign Galvin. As they were attempting to get back to Harder, a navy floatplane landed to help. It ran over the line and parted it. Another Harder volunteer jumped in the water and swam another line through the surf and coral to the beach. While navy planes circled overhead, Japanese snipers fired away from the foliage while the Harders men pulled the raft and the five men aboard. The rescue was later hailed as one of the boldest on record.
Continuing his war patrol, Dealey next scored his first of four successes against the toughest target of all – an enemy Japanese destroyer. Spotted by an enemy aircraft north of the Western Carolines on April 13, 1944, Harder became the quarry of a patrolling enemy destroyer, which closed to within before Dealey fired a spread of torpedoes. The destroyer sank within five minutes. Dealey's ensuing contact report quickly became famous: "Expended four torpedoes and one Jap destroyer". Four days later, Dealey also sank Matsue Maru near Woleai – then surfaced again near the island on April 20 to bombard the beleaguered Japanese garrison with his submarine's deck gun. Harder ended its fourth war patrol at Fremantle, Australia, on May 3, 1944.
Fifth patrol – Medal of Honor action
Next, Dealey was ordered to take Harder on patrol on May 26, 1944 off the Japanese fleet anchorage at Tawi Tawi. Dealey was asked to pick up some friendly guerrilla fighters from nearby northeastern Borneo. Heading into the Sibutu Passage on the night of June 6/7 he came upon an enemy convoy of three tankers in ballast, escorted by two destroyers. One destroyer detected him and attacked. Again, Dealey let the enemy destroyer close to less than before firing three torpedoes, and became his second destroyer victim. Then Dealey pursued, executing an end around. Diving to radar depth, he was attacked by the second destroyer. He fired all six bow tubes from just ; all missed, and Harder plunged accidentally to, losing contact. At 11.43 on 7 June, Dealey encountered another destroyer,, south of Tawi Tawi, and attacked with three torpedoes from point blank range, ; all three hit. Hayanami blew up virtually overhead, and one of her sisters subjected Harder to a two-hour depth charge attack. By 17.30, there were eight hunting him. Dealey slipped away. Harder transited the Sibutu Passage to pick up the guerrilla force on the night of June 8/9 and headed back early the next day.In the narrowest part of the Passage, Dealey spotted what appeared to be two more patrolling Japanese destroyers and made an undetected approach. Firing four torpedoes at the overlapping targets, he was rewarded with two hits on, which sank almost immediately. Dealey thought he had scored a hit and sunk another destroyer also, but postwar records failed to confirm it. On June 10, 1944, Dealey sighted a large Japanese task force: three battleships, four cruisers, and their screening destroyers, but the submarine was spotted by an enemy airplane, and one of the enemy escorts pressed an attack on the sub. Dealey sent three torpedoes "down the throat", heard several explosions, and thought he had scored another kill, before diving to avoid two hours of relentless depth-charging. Postwar, Japanese records later showed the destroyer was able to avoid his torpedoes. Dealey returned to Darwin, Australia on June 21 after an outstanding patrol that firmly established his reputation as the "Destroyer Killer," with what was then thought to be a total of six to his credit. Of greater strategic importance was the ensuing decision by Japanese Admiral Soemu Toyoda to abandon Tawi Tawi anchorage as too exposed to enemy submarines, a sortie that then precipitated the Battle of the Philippine Sea.
In a curious incident, Rear Admiral Ralph Waldo Christie, who commanded U.S. submarines at Fremantle, ordered Harder back to sea on the day she arrived, ostensibly to seek out and attack a Japanese cargo ship that carried nickel ore from Celebes to the homeland once a month – but also to give Christie an opportunity to participate personally in a short war patrol. Assigned on June 27, 1944 to intercept a damaged Japanese cruiser returning from the Battle of the Philippine Sea, Dealey was unable to close for an attack and was similarly outmaneuvered by the "nickel ship" three days later, when Japanese patrol aircraft forced him down and kept him there. Harder returned to Darwin without further incident on July 3, and the whole episode was treated simply as an extension of the ship's fifth patrol.
During their time together, however, Admiral Christie took Dealey aside and noted his opinion that after five successful war patrols, it was time for Dealey to relinquish command to his executive officer, Tiny Lynch, and move on to other duty. Dealey demurred. With about a third of Harders crew about to be replaced, he felt a personal responsibility to break in the new men before turning the boat over to a fledgling commanding officer. Ultimately, Christie agreed Dealey could take Harder out for one more patrol, her sixth.