This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Robert Cox, YNCS
to remember
Fluckey, Eugene Bennett, RADM USN(Ret).
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Contact Info
Home Town Washington, DC
Last Address 7101 Bay Front Dr #313 Annapolis, MD 21403
Date of Passing Jun 28, 2007
Location of Interment U.S. Naval Academy Cemetery and Columbarium (VLM) - Annapolis, Maryland
After he retired from the Navy in 1972, Eugene Fluckey and his wife, Marjorie, started running an orphanage in Portugal in 1974. Marjorie died in 1979, after 42 years of marriage. He married his second wife, Margaret, in 1980 and they continued to run the orphanage together until it closed in 1982. He has one daughter, Barbara.
His book, Thunder Below! published in 1992, depicts the exploits of his beloved Barb. "Though the tally shows more shells, bombs, and depth charges fired at Barb, no one received the Purple Heart and Barb came back alive, eager, and ready to fight again."
Fluckey was awarded Eagle Scout in 1948. He is one of only eleven known Eagle Scouts who also received the Medal of Honor. He was an honorary companion of the Maryland Commandery of the Military Order of Foreign Wars. His book Thunder Below! was winner of the 1993 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature.
Other Comments:
Medal of Honor
Awarded for Actions During World War II
Service: Navy
Division: U.S.S. Barb (SS-220)
General Orders: Submarine Board of Awards, Serial 0175 (February 28, 1945)
Citation: The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Commander Eugene Bennett Fluckey, United States Navy, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as commanding officer of the U.S.S. BARB (SS-220) during her ELEVENTH War Patrol along the east coast of China from 19 December 1944 to 15 February 1945. After sinking a large enemy ammunition ship and damaging additional tonnage during a running two-hour night battle on 8 January, Commander Fluckey, in an exceptional feat of brilliant deduction and bold tracking on 25 January, located a concentration of more than 30 enemy ships in the lower reaches of Nankuan Chiang (Mamkwan Harbor). Fully aware that a safe retirement would necessitate an hour's run at full speed through the uncharted, mined, and rock-obstructed waters, he bravely ordered, "Battle station--torpedoes!" In a daring penetration of the heavy enemy screen, and riding in five fathoms of water, he launched the BARB's last forward torpedoes at 3,000-yard range. Quickly bringing the ship's stern tubes to bear, he turned loose four more torpedoes into the enemy, obtaining eight direct hits on six of the main targets to explode a large ammunition ship and cause inestimable damage by the resultant flying shells and other pyrotechnics. Clearing the treacherous area at high speed, he brought the BARB through to safety and four days later sank a large Japanese freighter to complete a record of heroic combat achievement, reflecting the highest credit upon Commander Fluckey, his gallant officers and men, and the United States Naval Service.
UK Telegraph Article: Rear-Admiral Eugene Fluckey
Date
Jul 10, 2007
Last Updated: Jul 12, 2007
Comments
Rear-Admiral Eugene Fluckey, who has died aged 93, was one of the most highly decorated American submariners of the Second World War.
On January 25 1945 Fluckey was commanding the Gato-class submarine Barb when, in a feat of brilliant deduction and bold tracking, he located a concentration of more than 30 Japanese ships in the lower reaches of Nankuan Chiang, 250 miles south of Shanghai. Ordering "Battle stations!" he penetrated the heavy enemy screen and, riding in only five fathoms of water, launched his forward torpedoes at a range of 3,000 yards.
Quickly bringing his boat's stern tubes to bear, he fired four more, which obtained eight hits on six of the main targets, and blew up a large ammunition ship, causing further damage to the enemy. Fluckey then cleared the area by running at full speed through the uncharted, mined and rock-obstructed waters to safety. Earlier in the same patrol he had sunk a large enemy ammunition ship during a running two-hour night battle and, as he withdrew to base on January 29, sank another large Japanese freighter.
Fluckey took command of Barb in April 1944, when on five patrols his initiative and aggression cost the enemy dear. On his first war patrol off northern Japan he sank five ships by torpedo and, in a series of surface gun duels, destroyed some 20 small vessels. During his next patrol, between the Philippines and China, he sank three more Japanese ships, including the 20,000-ton escort carrier Unyo and an 11,000-ton Japanese tanker with the same salvo.
Between October 1944 and February 1945 Fluckey operated in the East China Sea and in the summer Barb became the first American submarine to be armed with rockets, which were used to strike at a Japanese air station and several factories.
On July 23 Fluckey raised his own commando of eight volunteers, who paddled on to Sakhalin Island under cover of night and planted explosive charges on railway lines 400 yards inland. Fluckey considered giving the crewmen a terse Hollywood-style send-off, but all he could think of was: "Boys, if you get stuck, head for Siberia, 130 miles north. Follow the mountain ranges. Good luck." As they paddled back to Barb, the wreckage of a 16-car train flew 200ft into the air.
Fluckey was known to flout the US Navy's prohibition on alcohol by stashing cases of beer in the officers' shower and whenever Barb sank a ship everyone on board celebrated with a cold drink. His official score was 95,360 tons of enemy shipping, though he reckoned this should have been 145,000 tons.
He was awarded the Medal of Honour, four Navy Crosses, the Distinguished Service Medal and the Legion of Merit. Barb received four Presidential unit citations and several Navy unit commendations. But Fluckey often said that his greatest achievement was that no one under his command ever received another well-known medal: the Purple Heart for being wounded in action. "He was absolutely confident and absolutely fearless, but fearless with good judgment," said a contemporary. "He brought his ship and his people home."
Eugene Bennett Fluckey was born in Washington, DC, on October 5 1913 and graduated from the US Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1935.
His first appointments were to the battleship Nevada and the destroyer McCormick before he attended the submarine school at Groton, Connecticut.
His first submarine was S-42, and in 1941-42 he served in the 2,000-ton fleet submarine Bonita on patrols off Panama.
In late 1945 Fluckey was summoned to Washington where he worked briefly in the Office of the Navy Secretary, James Forrestal, and in the War Plans Division before becoming personal aide to the Chief of Naval Operations, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz.
He commanded the modernised submarine Halfbeak before joining the staff of the Commander, Submarine Force, Atlantic Fleet, and then was US naval attaché in Lisbon. A series of prominent command and staff jobs eventually led Fluckey to appointment as Commander Submarine Force, Pacific, in 1964.
His last appointments were as Director of Naval Intelligence, and chief of the Military Assistance Advisory Group, Portugal. After retiring in 1972, Fluckey, with his second wife, ran a Portugese orphanage for some years. He also treated the ageing veterans of Barb to cruises in Alaska and on the Mississippi river. His wartime memoir Thunder Below! (1992) won the Samuel Eliot Morison prize for naval history.
Eugene Fluckey died on June 28. His first wife Marjorie, whom he married in 1937, predeceased him in 1979; he is survived by his second wife Margaret, along with a daughter of his first marriage.
