On July 4th, let's remember one who made it possible

A submarine connection to the 4th of July. On 4 July 1944, on his fourth war patrol in command of USS Seahorse (SS-304), Commander Slade Cutter sank the Kyodo Maru #28, the fifth ship of the patrol, bringing his patrol tonnage sunk to 17,321. It would be Commander Cutter's final patrol of the war...but in this case, a happy ending, as his fifth patrol was cut short not by tragedy but by the end of WWII.

Second only to Dick O'Kane and tied with "Mush" Morton in the number of Japanese ships they sank in World War II, Slade Cutter had an uncanny ability to find and destroy enemy targets wherever he went. It was said by VADM Charles Lockwood, COMSUBPAC, that Cutter "could find Jap ships in Pearl Harbor if asked." Cutter's four war patrols as Commanding Officer of USS Seahorse (SS-304) netted 19 sinkings and more than 70,000 tons of shipping in the postwar accounting, and he was awarded four Navy Crosses during the conflict.

Slade Cutter, a true American hero.

posted by Robert Schumacher @ 11:18 PM