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Nicole Summers, MMFN
to remember
Allen, Robert Walker, LT.
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Casualty Info
Home Town Edgewood, PA
Last Address Oakmont,PA
Casualty Date Jan 10, 1943
Cause KIA-Body Not Recovered
Reason Other Explosive Device
Location Pacific Ocean
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial - Honolulu, Hawaii
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
On January 10th, 1943, the USS Argonaut (SS-168) was attacking a Japanese convoy when she was counterattacked by the convoy escorts. An allied plane witnessed her attack. The submarine was apparently damaged by a depth charge. When she came to the surface, she was subsequently sunk by gun fire from the Japanese destroyers escorting the convoy, with a loss of all crew members. Lieutenant Allen was officially declared dead on January 11, 1944.
Comments/Citation:
Robert Walker Allen was born April 18, 1919 in Edgewood, Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, son of Kenneth Pratt and Isabel Louise (Robinson) Allen. He had two brothers and one sister. His brother Kenneth would serve in the Navy during WWII; brother Donald served with the Army Air Corps. His famil lived in Akron in Summit county Ohio in 1920. By 1930 they were living in Wilkinsburg, Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, where his father worked as a power salesman and later as an industrial engineer for Duquesne Light Company.
Robert graduated from Wilkinsburg High School and from the Pennsylvania State Nautical School in Philadelphia. Following his graduation, he served a year as third officer with the Merchant Marines on the American Export Lines ship, Exilana. A member of the Naval Reserves, he was called to active duty, and was commissioned as an Ensign in the US Navy on July 8, 1940. He served aboard USS Arkansas (BB-33) when it collided with the steamer, Melrose, in December 1940.
His father stated that “intricacies of submarine operation appealed to him [Robert] and he applied for transfer…He had a brilliant technical mind, and he enjoyed the mechanical devices aboard a sub.” On March 20, 1942 he married Dorothy Danton in Oakmont, Pennsylvania.
Robert graduated from Submarine School in New London, Connecticut in June 1942 and spent a week at home on leave. In July 1942 he reported aboard USS Argonaut (APS-1, SS-166) as a Lieutenant. Argonaut’s second war patrol was conducted following a complete modernization, at Mare Island. Her mission on this one had been to cooperate with Nautilus in transporting 252 Marine officers and men to Makin Island for a diversionary raid against enemy shore installations. In the early morning of 17 August 1942, the raiders were debarked in boats. After nearly two days ashore, the Marines returned, and the submarines transported them back to Pearl Harbor, Argonaut arriving on August 26.
While operating in the area southeast of New Britain in the Solomon Sea off Papau, New Guinea during her third patrol, Argonaut intercepted a Japanese convoy returning to Rabaul from Lae on January 10, 1943. A U. S. Army plane which was out of bombs saw one destroyer hit by a torpedo, saw the explosion of two other destroyers, and reported that there were five other vessels in the group. On the basis of the report given by the Army flier who witnessed the attack in which Argonaut perished, this ship was credited with having damaged one Japanese destroyer on her last patrol.
Argonaut was sunk by Japanese aircraft and destroyers Isokaze and Maikaze during this encounter on January 10, 1943. Lt. Robert W. Allen was among the 8 officers and 94 crew members lost. Later issued letters of commendation indicate “as a result of a severe counterattack the Argonaut was forced to break surface but with no regard to personal safety and in the face of imminent death, the officers and crew accepted destruction rather than surrender.”
Robert W. Allen’s name appears on the Tablets of the Missing, Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, Manila, Philippines.
This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen saved on Together We Served and Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smartphone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.
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