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Casualty Info
Home Town Los Angeles, CA
Last Address 8258 Compton Ave Los Angeles, CA
Casualty Date Sep 09, 1943
Cause KIA-Body Not Recovered
Reason Other Explosive Device
Location Pacific Ocean
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment Manila American Cemetery and Memorial - Manila, Philippines
Wall/Plot Coordinates (cenotaph)
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
USS Grayling (SS-209) departed Fremantle on 30 July 1943, for her eighth patrol, going through Makassar Strait and thence to the Philippine area. On 19 August, she reported having damaged a 6,000 ton freighter near Balikpapan, and the following day told of having sunk a 250 ton Taki Maru type pocket tanker by gunfire in Sibutu Passage, taking one man prisoner. This was the last report received direct from Grayling. On 23 August, she completed a special mission at Pandan Bay, Panay, delivering cargo to guerrillas. This mission was reported by guerrillas. Then she departed for Tablas Strait, there to reconnoiter until 2 September, when she would patrol approaches to Manila until 10 September. She was to return to Pearl Harbor for refit, passing from SubSoWesPac to Subpac on 13 September. She was not heard from after 20 August 1943, and on 30 September 1943, Grayling was reported as presumed lost. It is certain that Grayling was lost between 9 and 12 September 1943 either in Lingayen Gulf or along the approaches to Manila.
QM2 Waller was a member of the crew and was listed as missing in action and later declared dead.
Comments/Citation:
Service number: 720371
Submarine war patrols:
USS Triton (SS-201) - 2nd
USS Grayling (SS-209) - 2nd through 5th; 7th and 8th
The information contained in this profile was compiled from various internet sources.
Central Pacific Campaign (1941-43)/Battle of Midway
From Month/Year
June / 1942
To Month/Year
June / 1942
Description The Battle of Midway in the Pacific Theater of Operations was one of the most important naval battles of World War II. Between 4 and 7 June 1942, only six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, the United States Navy (USN), under Admirals Chester W. Nimitz, Frank Jack Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance decisively defeated an attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, Chuichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondo on Midway Atoll, inflicting irreparable damage on the Japanese fleet. Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare." It was Japan's first naval defeat since the Battle of Shimonoseki Straits in 1863.
The Japanese operation, like the earlier attack on Pearl Harbor, sought to eliminate the United States as a strategic power in the Pacific, thereby giving Japan a free hand in establishing its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Japanese hoped that another demoralizing defeat would force the U.S. to capitulate in the Pacific War and thus ensure Japanese dominance in the Pacific.
The Japanese plan was to lure the United States' aircraft carriers into a trap. The Japanese also intended to occupy Midway as part of an overall plan to extend their defensive perimeter in response to the Doolittle air raid on Tokyo. This operation was also considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii itself.
The plan was handicapped by faulty Japanese assumptions of the American reaction and poor initial dispositions.Most significantly, American codebreakers were able to determine the date and location of the attack, enabling the forewarned U.S. Navy to set up an ambush of its own. Four Japanese aircraft carriers—Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu, all part of the six-carrier force that had attacked Pearl Harbor six months earlier—and a heavy cruiser were sunk at a cost of one American aircraft carrier and a destroyer. After Midway and the exhausting attrition of the Solomon Islands campaign, Japan's shipbuilding and pilot training programs were unable to keep pace in replacing their losses, while the U.S. steadily increased its output in both areas.
