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Contact Info
Home Town Maunabo, Puerto Rico
Last Address Brevard County, FL
Date of Passing Sep 14, 1969
Location of Interment U.S. Naval Academy Cemetery and Columbarium (VLM) - Annapolis, Maryland
Rear Admiral Frederick Lois Riefkohl (February 27, 1889-September 1969), a native of Maunabo, Puerto Rico, was an officer in the United States Navy and the first Puerto Rican to graduate from the United States Naval Academy and to be awarded the Navy Cross. The Navy Cross is the second highest medal, after the Medal of Honor, that can be awarded by the U.S. Navy for heroism or distinguished service. He was a World War I Navy Cross recipient who served as Captain of the USS Vincennes during World War II.
Frederick Louis Riefkohl was born in Maunabo, Puerto Rico and his full name was Luis Federico Riefkohl Jaimison (when he changed it is unknown but was before entering the Naval Academy), on 27 February 1889, son of Luis Riefkohl y Sandoz and Julia Jamieson Riefkohl. He attended schools in Arroyo, Puerto Rico; Christainsted, St. Croix, Virgin Islands; and Concord, Massachusetts; and had a year at Phillips-Andover Academy before entering the US Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, on appointment from Puerto Rico, on 5 July 1907, the first Midshipman appointed from Puerto Rico. As a Midshipman he was a member of the Track Team and played Class football. He graduated on 2 June 1911, and as Passed Midshipman served at sea for a year , as required by law (changed in 1912), prior to becoming commissioned on 2 March 1912. Through subsequent promotions he attained the rank of Captain, to date from 4 June 1939. He was transferred to the Retired List of the Navy on 1 January 1947, and advanced to the rank of Rear Admiral on the basis of combat citations.
Other Comments:
Navy Cross
Awarded for Actions During World War I
Service: Navy
Division: U.S.S. Philadelphia
Citation: The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Lieutenant Frederick Louis Riefkohl, United States Navy, for distinguished service in the line of his profession as Commander of the Armed Guard of the U.S.S. PHILADELPHIA, and in an engagement with an enemy submarine. On 2 August 1917, a periscope was sighted, and then a torpedo passed under the stern of the ship. A shot was fired, which struck close to the submarine, which then disappeared.
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.
