This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Kent Weekly (SS) (DBF), EMCS
to remember
Accardy, John George, SM3c.
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Casualty Info
Home Town Darien, CT
Last Address USS Tang (SS-306)
Memorialized Manila American Cemetery Tablets of the Missing Manila, Philippines
Casualty Date Oct 25, 1944
Cause KIA-Body Not Recovered
Reason Torpedoed
Location Pacific Ocean
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment Buried at Sea, Pacific Ocean
Wall/Plot Coordinates Lost at Sea aboard USS Tang (SS-306)
Military Service Number 8 789 732
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
USS Tang was on her fifth war patrol when a night surface attack was launched in the early morning hours of 25 October 1944 against a transport which had previously been stopped in an earlier attack. The first torpedo was fired, and when it was observed to be running true, the second and last was loosed. It curved sharply to the left, broached, porpoised and circled. Emergency speed was called for, and the rudder was thrown over. These measures resulted only in the torpedo striking the stern of TANG, rather than amidships. Nine men survived the sinking, and spent the war as Prisoners of War.
Signalman Third Class Accardy was listed as missing in action and later declared dead 7 December 1945.
Comments/Citation:
Presidential Unit Citation
For extraordinary heroism in action during her Fourth War Patrol against enemy Japanese shipping in the Honshu Area from July 31 to September 3, 1944, and her Fifth War Patrol in Formosa Straits, September 27 to October 24,1944. Boldly searching out the enemy through perilous coastline shoal waters to establish contact with a large hostile convoy, the USS Tang penetrated a heavy escort screen to launch a series of smashing torpedo attacks and sink five Japanese ships totaling 22,500 tons. With every surface unit vital to the enemy during accelerated hostilities pointing toward the crucial battle for Leyte Gulf, the Tang daringly challenged two large, well armed, heavily escorted convoys bound for the Philippines with reinforcements and supplies. Operating without support and in heroic defiance of severe countermeasures, she attacked relentlessly from all sides, waging furious battle against terrific odds and climaxing her aggressive Fifth Patrol by sending every ship of both convoys to the bottom. A seaworthy fighting ship, handled brilliantly by her gallant officers and men, the Tang rounded out her previous distinguished record of achievement by her crushing blows against the enemy's power to wage war, therefore materially furthering the vital operations to control the Pacific and upholding the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.
The information contained in this profile was compiled from various internet sources.
World War II/Asiatic-Pacific Theater
From Month/Year
December / 1941
To Month/Year
September / 1945
Description The plan of the Pacific subseries was determined by the geography, strategy, and the military organization of a theater largely oceanic. Two independent, coordinate commands, one in the Southwest Pacific under General of the Army Douglas MacArthur and the other in the Central, South, and North Pacific (Pacific Ocean Areas) under Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, were created early in the war. Except in the South and Southwest Pacific, each conducted its own operations with its own ground, air, and naval forces in widely separated areas. These operations required at first only a relatively small number of troops whose efforts often yielded strategic gains which cannot be measured by the size of the forces involved. Indeed, the nature of the objectivesùsmall islands, coral atolls, and jungle-bound harbors and airstrips, made the employment of large ground forces impossible and highlighted the importance of air and naval operations. Thus, until 1945, the war in the Pacific progressed by a double series of amphibious operations each of which fitted into a strategic pattern developed in Washington.
