Ships
- USS Allen (DD-66) Captain from 28 May 1943 · Relieved on 31 March 1944
Homer Howard Nielson was born in the Philippines on 13 April 1912. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy with the class of 1934 and was commissioned an ensign on 31 May 1934. He became a lieutenant (junior grade) on 31 May 1937 and a lieutenant on 1 July 1941. On 1 March 1943 the Navy gave him a temporary promotion to lieutenant commander.
His command in the Pacific war was the destroyer Allen (DD-66), a Sampson-class ship built at Bath, Maine, during the First World War. She had first gone into commission in January 1917 under Samuel Woods Bryant. Brought back into service in 1940 as the last of her class, she was sent to Pearl Harbor and was there on the morning of 7 December 1941. For the rest of the war the old ship stayed on escort, patrol, and training duty, mostly in Hawaiian waters.
Nielson took command of Allen on 28 May 1943, relieving Parke H. Brady. The next day she was at sea off Pearl Harbor exercising with the submarines Spearfish and Searaven, and that work continued through the end of the month with Searaven. On 29 July 1943 the submarine Seahorse left Pearl Harbor for exercises with Allen and the tug Chickasaw. Those drills were typical of the tour. From the Hawaiian Sea Frontier, Allen escorted and patrolled near the islands and trained with Pearl Harbor submarines so the boats could practice getting clear of an anti-submarine ship.
He remained in Allen into the spring of 1944. On 1 February 1944, still in command, he received a temporary promotion to commander. On 31 March 1944 he turned the destroyer over to William James Riley, Jr.
After the war, as a temporary commander, he commanded the destroyer Buck (DD-761) from 28 June 1946 until 19 September 1946. Homer Howard Nielson died on 16 January 2005, at the age of ninety-two.