One of the World's Great Submariners Passes

Rear Admiral Eugene B. Fluckey (U.S. Navy, ret.), a wartime submarine commander credited with sinking 29 enemy ships, has passed on. He was 93.

Adm. Fluckey was the recipient of the Medal of Honor and an amazing four Navy Crosses among other decorations. He also was an Eagle Scout.

In a special statement earlier today, Admiral Mike Mullen, chief of Naval Operations (and Pres. Bush's nominee for the post of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), said:

[Adm. Fluckey] helped pioneer the idea of submarine support to special operations. In the summer of 1945, he launched a group of his own commandos ashore to set demolition charges on a coastal railway line, destroying a 16-car train. It was the sole landing by U.S. military forces on the Japanese Home Islands during the war. ... In his final war patrol report as commanding officer of USS Barb, he had this to say about his crew: “What wordy praise can one give such men as these; men who … follow unhesitatingly when in the vicinity of minefields so long as there is the possibility of targets … Men who flinch not with the fathometer ticking off two fathoms beneath the keel … Men who will fight to the last bullet and then start throwing the empty shell cases. These are submariners.”

Luckey Fluckey- new book coming out about him-
“The Galloping Ghost”- from Naval Institute press.

What a remarkable man. GodSpeed and RIP Admiral Fluckey

From the “Annapolis Capital” last Saturday 26 June:

Annapolis’ ‘Lucky Fluckey,’ a World War II legend, is in final stages of Alzheimer’s
By EARL KELLY, Staff Writer

Retired Rear Adm. Eugene B. Fluckey, who entered the Hospice of the Chesapeake on Saturday in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s’ disease, is the subject of a new book titled “The Galloping Ghost.”

“Let’s gallop,” the redheaded, freckle-faced commander would tell his crew when it was time to get his submarine moving. And the Japanese called him “the ghost,” because they didn’t know where he came from or where he went.

The holder of four Navy Crosses and the Medal of Honor, Adm. Fluckey, 93, an Annapolis resident, is the most decorated living American, according to his biographer, Pennsylvania journalist Carl LaVo......

Of special interest locally, Adm. Fluckey raised money from private contributors in the 1950s to build Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. “He is the last of the great ones,” Mr. LaVo said yesterday. When asked what made Adm. Fluckey so great, Mr. LaVo said “tenaciousness.”

“He would always research a problem, and when he set a course, he stuck to it,” he said.

This passion for creativity could get annoying, and Mr. LaVo wrote of one point in Adm. Fluckey’s career: “In a poll among his squadron skippers he was voted the officer least likely to succeed because he ‘rocked the boat’ with too many new ideas.”

Adm. Fluckey’s former executive officer, retired Vice Adm. Robert W. McNitt, a Ginger Cove resident, said, “Gene was the ideal captain. “He was fearless and good-humored, and could solve complex technical problems. He could motivate his crew better than anyone I have ever seen.”

Adm. Fluckey’s daughter, Annapolis resident Barbara Fluckey Bove, described her father as “an optimistic, forward-looking person,” and attributes his many successes to the way he handled challenges. “My dad’s big motto was ‘There are no problems, only solutions,’ “ Mrs. Bove said. “He lived that; he didn’t dwell on problems, because if you are dwelling on the problem, you can’t find a solution.”

Unsinkable

Adm. Fluckey’s unsinkable attitude came through after World War II, when he was the American attache to the NATO regional office in Portugal. Terrorists blew up the brand-new building in 1971, just before its dedication. Adm. Fluckey had the debris cleaned up and positioned television cameras so it looked like the building still had windows.
“He wouldn’t give them (the bombers) the satisfaction,” Mrs. Bove said.

A 1935 Naval Academy graduate nicknamed “Lucky Fluckey,” Adm. Fluckey commanded the USS Barb, whose battle flag was the caricature of a one-eyed mackerel throwing firecrackers.
He won his crew’s respect by knowing their jobs as well as they did, whether it was winding the armature in a motor or repairing a leak, according to Mr. LaVo. Also, he knew that little things could mean a lot.

Adm. Fluckey would go against Navy regulations to smuggle cases of beer aboard, often stacking the showers full.
Cold beers were the commander’s way of rewarding the crew for enduring difficult circumstances, as when Japanese ships circled overhead, ready to make the kill.

On at least one such occasion, as the enemy hovered, Adm. Fluckey got on the intercom and told the crew to start putting beer in the cooler. The message was simple: As improbable as it may have seemed, this would not be defeat, it would be a victory celebration.

According to ship’s records, the Barb survived an estimated 400 shells, bombs and depth charges during its five patrols under his command.

On the flip side, the Barb under Adm. Fluckey sank “85 vessels in all, including an aircraft carrier, a cruiser, a destroyer, and numerous cargo ships,” or more tonnage than any other submarine, according to Mr. LaVo. The Navy couldn’t confirm some of the kills, though, because some were made in Japanese harbors, without witnesses or intelligence reports to back up the claims.
The Navy credited Adm. Fluckey with 25 kills.

Adm. Fluckey revolutionized submarine warfare when he decided that torpedoes were too limited, and mounted a rocket launcher on his submarine, according to Mr. LaVo.
On the night of June 22, 1945, the Barb slipped into the harbor of Shari, Japan, a mining and lumber area. The sub opened fire with 12 rockets and set the town on fire. “It was the first ballistic missile strike by an American submarine in the history of warfare,” Mr. LaVo wrote.

Another time, Adm. Fluckey landed some of the Barb’s crew at Karafuto, where they planted charges and blew up a troop transport train. This was the only American invasion of the Japanese mainland during World War II, according to Mr. LaVo.

Beating obstacles

Finding solutions for difficult problems has always been Adm. Fluckey’s forte. Severe nearsightedness overtook him while he was a midshipman at the Naval Academy, a malady that forced a lot of would-be officers out of the military in the 1930s. Midshipman Fluckey set about studying optics and anatomy, and, with a doctor’s assistance, designed eyeglasses that would help him improve his eyesight. At night, while his roommate read his homework to him, Midshipman Fluckey exercised his eyes, until he passed the eye examination with flying colors.

When Adm. Fluckey married Marjorie Gould, who suffered from diabetes, he studied her reactions to certain foods and devised a diet that let her live a full life with the deadly disease, according to Mrs. Bove, the couple’s only child.

After World War II, Adm. Fluckey, while assigned to head the Electrical Engineering Department at the academy, was tasked with raising money to build a stadium the armed forces could be proud of. He raised more than $2 million for Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. Adm. Fluckey thought it a waste of money to hire professional fundraisers, so he and others took it upon themselves to do the job. The result was that 98 cents out of every dollar raised went directly to construction. In 2003, the Naval Academy Alumni Association named Adm. Fluckey one of its Distinguished Graduates.

And one of the things he was most proud of, according to his family and Mr. LaVo: No one on his crew was ever awarded a Purple Heart.

To buy “The Galloping Ghost,” contact area bookstores. To get a copy through its publisher, the Naval Institute Press, call 800-233-8764 or go online to www.usni.org.

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