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Contact Info
Home Town Topeka, KS
Last Address Honolulu, HI
Date of Passing Feb 25, 1992
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
Wall/Plot Coordinates 6 5024-A
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
Born in Topeka, Kansas, to Harry Victor Felt and the former Grace Greenwood Johnson, Felt attended public school in Goodland, Kansas, before moving with his family to Washington, D.C., at the age of ten. Lacking money for college, Felt entered a cram school for the U.S. Naval Academy and was appointed to the academy in 1919. At the Academy, Felt received good marks but graduated in 1923 with the unremarkable class rank of 152 out of 413, having accumulated almost as many demerits as anyone in his class.
Felt retired in July 1964 upon reaching the mandatory retirement age, and spent his later years in Honolulu, Hawaii. He died on February 25, 1992, and is buried beside his wife in ArlingtonNationalCemetery.
Felt had a terrifying reputation as an arrogant, caustic, hard-driving perfectionist. "Many people were afraid of him ... he was pretty rough", commented Vice Admiral Lawson P. Ramage. A former aide described him as "mean as hell", and his staff complained that he worked "as though there were no holidays, Saturdays and Sundays, and expects others to do the same". "He was small in stature, but a blunt, tough, demanding taskmaster who brought discomfiture to his peers and earned the antipathy, if not animosity, of his subordinates", judged former subordinate and future four-star admiral Ignatius J. Galantin. A crack poker player, Felt unapologetically summarized his philosophy as "Trust everybody, but always cut the cards."
Other Comments:
Navy Cross
Awarded for Actions During World War II
Service: Navy
Division: U.S.S. Saratoga (CV-3)
Citation: The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Commander Harry Donald Felt, United States Navy, for extraordinary heroism in operations against the enemy while serving as Pilot of a carrier-based Navy Combat Plane and Group Commander of Air Group THREE (AG-3), attached to the U.S.S. SARATOGA (CV-3), in action against an enemy Japanese surface force northeast of the Solomon Islands, on 24 August 1942. Opposed by intense anti-aircraft fire and enemy fighter planes, Commander Felt led an air attack which resulted in the damaging or sinking of an aircraft carrier, the damaging of a heavy enemy cruiser and the sinking of a Japanese destroyer. His daring initiative and his successful accomplishment of a hazardous mission were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.
World War II/Asiatic-Pacific Theater/Okinawa Gunto Operation
From Month/Year
March / 1945
To Month/Year
June / 1945
Description The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg. was fought on the Ryukyu Islands of Okinawa and was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific War of World War II. The 82-day-long battle lasted from early April until mid-June 1945. After a long campaign of island hopping, the Allies were approaching Japan, and planned to use Okinawa, a large island only 340 mi (550 km) away from mainland Japan, as a base for air operations on the planned invasion of Japanese mainland (coded Operation Downfall). Four divisions of the U.S. 10th Army (the 7th, 27th, 77th, and 96th) and two Marine Divisions (the 1st and 6th) fought on the island. Their invasion was supported by naval, amphibious, and tactical air forces.
The battle has been referred to as the "typhoon of steel" in English, and tetsu no ame ("rain of steel") or ("violent wind of steel") in Japanese. The nicknames refer to the ferocity of the fighting, the intensity of kamikaze attacks from the Japanese defenders, and to the sheer numbers of Allied ships and armored vehicles that assaulted the island. The battle resulted in the highest number of casualties in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Based on Okinawan government sources, mainland Japan lost 77,166 soldiers, who were either killed or committed suicide, and the Allies suffered 14,009 deaths (with an estimated total of more than 65,000 casualties of all kinds). Simultaneously, 42,000–150,000 local civilians were killed or committed suicide, a significant proportion of the local population. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki together with the Soviet invasion of Manchuria caused Japan to surrender less than two months after the end of the fighting on Okinawa.