This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Cory Butterfield, AO1
to remember
Wilkinson, Eugene Parks, VADM USN(Ret).
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Contact Info
Home Town Long Beach, CA
Last Address Del Mar, CA
Date of Passing Jul 11, 2013
Location of Interment Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery (VA) - San Diego, California
Eugene Wilkinson was born August 10, 1918, in Long Beach, the youngest of two to Dennis Wilkinson and DaisyParks. Orphaned at a young age after his father was killed in a car accident and his mother died from a sudden illness, he was raised by his grandparents, Dennis and Lillian Wilkinson, who ran a creamery in Holtville. Graduating with a degree in physics and chemistry in 1938 from what was then San Diego State College, he taught chemistry and mathematics there for two years before receiving his Navy commission in December 1940.
Joining then-Captain Hyman G. Rickover at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in April 1948 after passing one of the first of Rickover's many such interviews, the mathematically-gifted Wilkinson "ultimately developed the nuclear physics equations and formulas for the team...and for the final reactor design" of the prototype reactor for USS Nautilus (SSN-571).
At 1100 on January 17, 1955, after getting the USS Nautilus (SSN-571) underway, Commander Wilkinson signaled "Underway on Nuclear Power." This historic message ushered in the nuclear age for the United States Navy, as well as the world. Wilkinson was the first commanding officer in a nuclear fleet that would eventually cover most of the aircraft carriers, several cruisers, and the entire submarine fleet for the United States Navy.
After retiring from the Navy, he received the Navy Meritorious Public Service Award (1976), the George Washington Gold Medal of the American Society of Engineers (1983), the Oliver Townsend Medal (1984), the Uranium Institute Gold Medal (1989), elected to the National Academy of Engineering (1990), the Henry DeWolf Smyth Nuclear Statesman Award (1994), and the Walter H. Zinn Award from the American Nuclear Society (1998). In 1980 he was chosen as the first President and CEO of the newly formed Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) from which he retired in 1984.
Retired VADM Wilkinson died of natural causes July 11 at his Del Mar home. He was 94.
Other Comments:
Submarine war patrols:
USS Blackfish (SS221) - 1st through 4th
USS Darter (SS-277) - 1st through 4th
World War II/Asiatic-Pacific Theater/Attack on Pearl Harbor
From Month/Year
December / 1941
To Month/Year
December / 1941
Description The attack on Pearl Harbor, also known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor, the Hawaii Operation or Operation AI by the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, and Operation Z during planning, was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, on the morning of December 7, 1941. The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II.
Japan intended the attack as a preventive action to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Empire of Japan planned in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. Over the next seven hours there were coordinated Japanese attacks on the U.S.-held Philippines, Guam and Wake Island and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
The attack commenced at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian Time. The base was attacked by 353 Imperial Japanese fighter planes, bombers, and torpedo planes in two waves, launched from six aircraft carriers. All eight U.S. Navy battleships were damaged, with four sunk. All but Arizona were later raised, and six were returned to service and went on to fight in the war. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship, and one minelayer. 188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed; 2,403 Americans were killed and 1,178 others were wounded. Important base installations such as the power station, shipyard, maintenance, and fuel and torpedo storage facilities, as well as the submarine piers and headquarters building (also home of the intelligence section) were not attacked. Japanese losses were light: 29 aircraft and five midget submarines lost, and 64 servicemen killed. One Japanese sailor, Kazuo Sakamaki, was captured.
The attack came as a profound shock to the American people and led directly to the American entry into World War II in both the Pacific and European theaters. The following day, December 8, the United States declared war on Japan. Domestic support for non-interventionism, which had been fading since the Fall of France in 1940,[19] disappeared. Clandestine support of the United Kingdom (e.g., the Neutrality Patrol) was replaced by active alliance. Subsequent operations by the U.S. prompted Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy to declare war on the U.S. on December 11, which was reciprocated by the U.S. the same day.
From the 1950s, several writers alleged that parties high in the U.S. and British governments knew of the attack in advance and may have let it happen (or even encouraged it) with the aim of bringing the U.S. into war. However, this advance-knowledge conspiracy theory is rejected by mainstream historians.
There were numerous historical precedents for unannounced military action by Japan. However, the lack of any formal warning, particularly while negotiations were still apparently ongoing, led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to proclaim December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy". Because the attack happened without a declaration of war and without explicit warning, the attack on Pearl Harbor was judged by the Tokyo Trials to be a war crime.
