On Eternal Patrol - Discrepancies in Medals Awarded to Lost Submariners as Listed on the ABMC Website
This page attempts to help bring differing data into line, and serve as a reliable source of information for the families of lost submariners as well as for submarine veterans' organizations.
The American Battle Monuments Commission
ABMC honors the service, achievements, and sacrifice of U.S. Armed Forces. The AMBC website (www.abmc.gov) has personal memorial pages for each of its honorees, much as this site does. ABMC maintains files for the nearly 225,000 American war dead who are buried at their cemeteries or commemorated on their Tablets of the Missing. Search their listings at https://www.abmc.gov/database-search. Unfortunately, the "Unit" function, although it includes some surface ships, does not include any submarines other than USS Bass.
In order to assist them in their effort, we at On Eternal Patrol have offered them the results of our extensive research into the medals, particularly the Purple Heart, received by men who were lost while serving the U.S. Submarine Force. The Purple Heart is correctly listed on the ABMC website for approximately 97% of lost submarine men who were eligible for the award. However, for the eighty families of the men whose Purple Heart is unlisted, that is no consolation.
On July 27, 2011, we sent a message to ABMC offices along with a copy to Navy Casualty, detailing omissions and errors (Table A) in their online listings of Purple Heart recipients. We included not only evidence that the men in question were entitled to the Purple Heart, but that they were, in fact, awarded the medal. As of this writing, none of the omissions have been corrected in the ABMC website.
Table A
All 45 of the men listed in Table A below are in National Archives' State Summary of War Casualties from World War II for Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard Personnel, accessable at https://www.archives.gov/research/military/ww2/navy-casualties.
All have Purple Heart Cards in the National Archives II (College Park, Maryland). Here is an example:
Purple Heart Card of Robert Lee Jasa of USS Wahoo (SS-238), photographed at National Archives II in College Park, Maryland, on April 22, 2019.
Note that Purple Heart Cards in NARA are scheduled to be digitalized, probably late in 2019, and made available to the public online. Unfortunately, not all men who received the Purple Heart (or who were eligible to receive the award) have Purple Heart Cards in the National Archives.
All men listed in Table A served aboard American submarines that were lost in action in World War II, with the exception of Samuel Howard Hunter (see Note 3 below).
Except for the men listed below in Table A and Table B, all other men who were lost when these submarines were sunk have the Purple Heart shown on their respective ABMC pages.
Three men, including a son of ADM Husband E. Kimmel, were the Commanding Officers of their vessels. At least seven of the men received other major awards, ranging from the Prisoner of War Medal to the Navy Cross.
All have individual pages on both ABMC's World War II Honor Roll and its equivalent page on the website of the National World War II Memorial. None is listed on ABMC's pages as having received the Purple Heart.
*Men who are correctly listed in the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor (https://www.thepurpleheart.com/)
We have copies of the Purple Heart Cards from the National Archives for the men listed in bold (all 45 of the men listed above).
Table A - Notes
Note 1 - Robert also received the Army Silver Star and the Bronze Star, as well as the Purple Heart.
Note 2 - Greer was the Executive Officer of USS Tullibee (SS-284).
Note 3 - Samuel was killed by a bomb that hit USS Sealion (SS-195), moored alongside his submarine.
Note 4 - Manning was the Commanding Officer of USS Robalo (SS-273). He received the Silver Star and the Bronze Star, as well as the Purple Heart. He was a son of ADM Husband E. Kimmel.
Note 5 - Samuel received the Navy Cross, the Silver Star, and the Legion of Merit, as well as the Purple Heart.
Note 6 - Conde was the Commanding Officer of USS Barbel (SS-316). He received the Bronze Star and the Navy Commendation Medal, as well as the Purple Heart.
Note 7 - Roderick was the Commanding Officer of USS Corvina (SS-226). He received the Silver Star, as well as the Purple Heart.
Note 8 - Some sources mistakenly spell his first name as "Maximum."
Note 9 - Charles began his career in the Navy as an enlisted man, and was later given a Commission. He received the Bronze Star, as well as the Purple Heart.
Note 10 - Duane survived the sinking of his vessel, but later died as a Prisoner of War. He received the Bronze Star and the Prisoner of War Medal, as well as the Purple Heart.
None of the men listed in Table B below were included in our letter to ABMC in 2011. We have since found that ABMC has failed to list the Purple Heart for these men, as well.
Table B
All 35 of the men listed in Table B below are in NARA's State Summary of War Casualties from World War II for Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard Personnel.
In the future we will attempt to locate Purple Heart Cards in the National Archives for these men.
All served aboard American submarines that were lost in action in World War II, with the exceptions of John Churchill MacMahon and Sergi Andreevitch Mahailoff (see Notes below).
Except for the men listed in Table A above and in Table B below, all other men who were lost when these submarines were sunk have the Purple Heart shown on their respective ABMC pages.
*Men who are correctly listed in the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor (https://www.thepurpleheart.com/)
Table B - Notes
Note 1 - Kenneth received the Bronze Star, as well as the Purple Heart.
Note 2 - Maurice received the Bronze Star, as well as the Purple Heart.
Note 3 - John received the Silver Star, as well as the Purple Heart.
Note 4 - John received the Bronze Star, as well as the Purple Heart.
Note 5 - Salvatore received the Bronze Star, as well as the Purple Heart.
Note 6 - John received the Silver Star and the Prisoner of War Medal, as well as the Purple Heart. He was taken prisoner while on reconnaissance mission and executed in captivity. None of his awards are listed in ABMC.
Note 7 - Sergi was aboard the Soviet Submarine L-16 as a liaison officer and interpreter when the boat was sunk.
Note 8 - Francis received the Bronze Star, as well as the Purple Heart.
Note 9 - Roy received the Bronze Star, as well as the Purple Heart.
Note 10 - Karl received the Bronze Star, as well as the Purple Heart.
Sources of Our Information
For a general listing of research sources, see our Sources page.Primary Sources
The information presented above represents thousands of hours of original research into the records of more than 4,000 individual submariners. Our findings are not a result of copying group listings from secondary sources. The evidence on which we base our information, in nearly every case of submariner fatality during World War II, is found by accessing individual personnel files in the National Archives' National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis. This research was done almost entirely by World War II submarine veteran Paul W. Wittmer, with input by Charles R. Hinman.
We are also in touch with the families of hundreds of the men we seek to honor, many of whom have donated photos, documents, and information.
For all of the men in Table A, Purple Heart Cards in hard copy have been accessed in National Archives II, College Park, Maryland. Note that not all men who received the Purple Heart (or who were eligible to receive the award) have Purple Heart Cards on file in NARA.
National Purple Heart Hall of Honor lists only a small percentage of the men honored on this site, but it does confirm that at least nine men from Table A and eleven men from Table B received the Purple Heart.
U. S. Navy Casualty Lists, Book 11, pp. #2042 - #2152, Submarine War Patrols, Pacific - 7 December 1941 to 2 September 1945. This listing was provided to us by Michael W. Pocock of the Maritime Quest website. A recently completed man-by-man comparison of our World War II lost submariner listings with those shown in Navy Casualt confirms complete agreement between our two sets of applicable data.
Secondary Sources
U.S. Submarine Losses - World War II, which was first published in 1946, then republished with some corrections (and a few mistakes of its own) in 1949, and finally republished in 1963 (unfortunately reinserting many of the errors in the 1946 edition). See www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/u/united-states-submarine-losses.html on the website of the Naval History & Heritage Command for the online version of the 1963 edition. The online version on the NHHC website has recently been updated, and is now entirely consistent with On Eternal Patrol research. We have a seperate page detailing the now corrected Discrepancies in Submarine Losses that were found on the NHHC website.
State Summary of War Casualties from World War II for Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard Personnel. Immediately after the War, the Navy Department published their State Summaries. They are available online on the website of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) at http://www.archives.gov/research/military/ww2/navy-casualties/). Within this are also lists of POWs who were released from prison camps.
U. S. Rosters of World War II Dead, 1939-1945, available online on the Ancestry.com website (http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=1102).
The Register of the Commissioned Officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps is available online on the late Patrick Clancey's HyperWar website at http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AMH/USN/Naval_Registers/.
An additional note for the ABMC website on the page for Thomas Boychulk (https://www.abmc.gov/node/459625) (Note: This link has changed; Boychulk is now unlisted. Checked on 8 May 2020)
"A 19 year old American man from Pennsylvania serving on active duty as a Seaman Second Class aboard the submarine "USS Bass" (SS-164) during World War II with seven months service. On August 17, 1942 while submerged, a fire started in the after battery room and spread to the torpedo room killing 25 [should be 26] crew members from asphyxiation by poisonous gas. He was buried at Corozal American Cemetery."
The same error appears on John Axton Robson's page (https://www.abmc.gov/node/459609). (Note: This link has changed; Robson is now unlisted. Checked on 8 May 2020) See our page on USS Bass for a complete list of men lost in the fire aboard the boat.
NHHC - Corrected Discrepancies in Submarine Losses
DPAA - Discrepancies in Submarine Losses
Submarine Losses - Chronological
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