This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Eugene Claude Ipox, Jr., TM1
to remember
May, Robert Edward, CDR USN(Ret).
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Contact Info
Home Town Kingston
Date of Passing Aug 26, 2012
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
May, Robert Edward CDR USN Ret went on eternal patrol August 26, 2012. Born at the beginning of an Age of Aquarius on February 2, 1924 in Kingston Rhode Island to Henry Gustaav, PHd, and Marguerite Uebel May, his dad (pathologist) passed at an early age, so he never really knew his dad. At age 15 Bob was Rochester's 1939 Soap Box Derby Champ. At age 16 he soloed his first airplane. At 17 he hailed an appointment from New York to the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. Graduating class of 1944 just in time to join MacArthur's return to the Philippines onboard the Flagship USS Nashville in the landing at Leyte Gulf, and survived the largest naval battle in history. On December 13, 1944 at 20 years of age Ensign Robert witnessed the face of a kamikaze pilot pass within arm's length of his watch on the aft tower just before hitting the Nashville's command center and killing or wounding 323 onboard. Upon return to the States for repairs he immediately married his sweetheart Ruth Schlitzer. Post WWII Bob sailed into the Silent Service of Submarines as Lt on Clamagore and Lt Commander Threadfin in Key West. After several years and several children he attended the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, onward to Cambridge earning a Master's in Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and then Commanding Officer of the USS Quillback. In 1959 Bob was assigned to Pittsfield Massachusetts as part of the original development team for the guidance system on the Polaris nuclear missile program which placed nuclear warheads onboard submarines, and forever changed the face of warfare. As the ninth child to Bob and Ruth had arrived, he was intensely involved with his older boys Soap Box Derby cars which resulted in both boys racing in the final heat, and the winner by inches advanced to race at Akron. After 25 years in the Navy moving from Key West, to Monterey, to Charleston, Groton, Pittsfield, Cambridge, San Diego; one end of the country to the other, Bob finally settled with Honeywell where he spent another 25 years as an engineer in Process Control. He was an organizer and volunteer at church, scouts, little league, blood drives, all the while raising ten children. Around Phoenix one would have run into him on his daily hike of Squaw Peak or Lookout Mountain, at the Bridge table, or at the Arizona Electric Car Assn. as a past President. Bob provided for mom and the 10 children: Robert Edward Jr., William Raymond, Joanne Margaret (Mell), Ruth Anne (Hoffman), Eileen Kathryn, Cynthia Marie (Ponath), James Walter (Sugene), Donald Fredrick (Connie), John Henry (Chris Ann), and Theresa Carol. Bob is survived by his brother Walt, nine of his children, 15 grand, and 11 great grandchildren, and survived his sister Kay Guncheon. Daggie was always on duty as he took on the most arduous tasks, never complained, set a profound example of leadership for his children, and pioneered innovative solutions in some of the most dangerous and stressful challenges imaginable. Robert will rejoin his awaiting bride of 67 years, with full honors, in Arlington National Cemetery, a stone's throw from the cherry blossoms lining the river banks where they once talked of beginning a life together, and life was young.
World War II/Asiatic-Pacific Theater/Borneo Operations
From Month/Year
April / 1945
To Month/Year
July / 1945
Description The Borneo Campaign of 1945 was the last major Allied campaign in the South West Pacific Area during World War II. In a series of amphibious assaults between 1 May and 21 July, the Australian I Corps, under Lieutenant General Leslie Morshead, attacked Japanese forces occupying the island. Allied naval and air forces, centred on the U.S. 7th Fleet under Admiral Thomas Kinkaid, the Australian First Tactical Air Force and the U.S. Thirteenth Air Force also played important roles in the campaign. They were resisted by Imperial Japanese Navy and Army forces in southern and eastern Borneo, under Vice-Admiral Michiaki Kamada, and in the north west by the Thirty-Seventh Army, led by Lieutenant-General Baba Masao.
The plans for the Allied attacks were known collectively as Operation Oboe. The invasion of Borneo was the second stage of Operation Montclair, which was aimed at destroying Japanese forces in, and re-occupying the Netherlands East Indies, the southern Philippines, Sarawak and British Borneo. Borneo in particular was considered at the time a strategic location for its natural resources, oil.
The Borneo campaign was criticized in Australia at the time and in subsequent years, as pointless or a "waste" of the lives of soldiers. Modern historians such as Max Hastings have said that attacking these forces, already cut off from Japan, was a waste of resources.
"Any rational strategic judgment would have left them to their own devices screened by token allied forces until their nation's defeat enforced their surrender."
It has been argued that the campaign did, however, achieve a number of objectives, such as increasing the isolation of significant Japanese forces occupying the main part of the Dutch East Indies, capturing major oil supplies, and freeing Allied prisoners of war, who were being held in increasingly worse conditions (see, for example, the Sandakan Death Marches and Batu Lintang camp articles).
The initial Allied plan comprised six stages: Operation Oboe 1 was to be an attack on Tarakan; Oboe 2 against Balikpapan; Oboe 3 against Banjermasin; Oboe 4 against Surabaya or Batavia (Jakarta); Oboe 5 against the eastern Netherlands East Indies; and Oboe 6 against British Borneo (Sabah). In the end only the operations against Tarakan, Balikpapan and British Borneoâ??at Labuan and Brunei Bayâ??took place.[3] The campaign opened with Oboe 1, with a landing on the small island of Tarakan, off the north east coast on 1 May 1945. This was followed on 10 June 1945 by Oboe 6: simultaneous assaults on the island of Labuan and the coast of Brunei, in the north west of Borneo. A week later, the Australians followed up with attacks on Japanese positions around Weston on the north-eastern part of Brunei Bay. The attention of the Allies then switched back to the central east coast, with Oboe 2, the last major amphibious assault of World War II, at Balikpapan on 1 July 1945. These operations ultimately constituted the last campaigns of Australian forces in the war against Japan.
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My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
April / 1945
To Month/Year
July / 1945
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
People You Remember USS Nashville (CL-43)
Memories Arriving at U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay, on 16 May, Nashville became the flagship of TF 74. The closing months of the war were spent providing fire support for the landings at Brunei Bay, Borneo, and protecting aircraft carriers in the Makassar Straits, Dutch East Indies. On 29 July, Nashville made a brief sortie from Subic to intercept a Japanese convoy reported off Indochina, but the sortie was soon canceled, ending her final wartime operation.
