Ships
- USS Allen (DD-66) Captain from 9 July 1945 · Relieved when she was decommissioned, 15 October 1945
Joseph C. Tyler, Jr., a lieutenant in the United States Navy, was the last officer to command the destroyer Allen. He became her captain on 9 July 1945 and remained in command until she was decommissioned on 15 October 1945.
Allen was a Sampson-class destroyer built by Bath Iron Works in Maine and commissioned on 24 January 1917, with Samuel Woods Bryant as her first commanding officer. In the First World War she patrolled and escorted shipping along the East Coast, in the Caribbean, and in European waters, including the early passage of American troops to France. In December 1918 she helped bring the transport carrying President Woodrow Wilson into Brest. After the war she served with the Atlantic Fleet. Command in those years passed through Henry David Cooke, Jr., Louis Calott Farley, John Edwin Ostrander, Jr., Charles Carroll Soule, Jr., Robert Bruce Crichton, and Percy Austin Decker, who held the ship when she was decommissioned at New York on 22 June 1922.
The Navy returned her to service on 23 June 1925 as a training ship for reservists of the District of Columbia, then laid her up at Philadelphia in March 1928. She remained in reserve until 23 August 1940, when she was recommissioned under Frederick Paul Williams as the last ship of her class still on the Navy list. After a short period on the East Coast she joined Destroyer Division 80 and reached Pearl Harbor in December 1940.
Allen was moored in the harbor on 7 December 1941, with Daniel Byrd Miller in command. Her guns engaged the Japanese aircraft, her gunners reported that they had helped shoot down attacking planes, and the ship came through with her crew unhurt. For the rest of the Pacific war she worked from Hawaii, escorting vessels among the islands, watching the approaches to Oahu, drilling at gunnery and antisubmarine work, and making occasional trips to the West Coast. Parke H. Brady, Homer Howard Nielson, and William James Riley, Jr. commanded her in succession during that duty. The ship received a battle star for her part in the Pearl Harbor attack.
Tyler relieved Lieutenant James Arthur Rowe on 9 July 1945, while Allen was still based at Pearl Harbor. Within weeks Japan agreed to surrender. On 20 August the destroyer sailed from Hawaii and reached Philadelphia on 13 September. Tyler saw her through inactivation, and on 15 October 1945 he was relieved as she was decommissioned. Her name was struck from the Navy list on 1 November 1945, and on 26 September 1946 she was sold for scrap.