Ships
- USS Helm (DD-388) Captain from 16 October 1937
Paul H. Talbot was born on 3 April 1897 in Willoughby, Ohio. His full name was Paul Hopkins Talbot. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1918, in the Class of 1919, and served in destroyers while the First World War was still being fought. He died in Palo Alto, California, on 9 September 1974.
As a lieutenant commander he was the first commanding officer of the destroyer Helm. He commissioned Helm on 16 October 1937. He was promoted to commander on 1 June 1939, and Lieutenant Commander Percival E. McDowell relieved him on 5 June 1939. He is not the namesake of the destroyer Ralph Talbot.
In January 1942 he was in the Asiatic Fleet in command of Destroyer Division 59. On the night of 23-24 January his flag was in John D. Ford. He was not her captain. With him were Pope, Parrott, and Paul Jones. Ordered against a Japanese invasion force off Balikpapan, on the east coast of Borneo, he took the four destroyers into the anchorage, where fires from the wrecked oil works lit the ships at anchor. They fired torpedoes and used their guns. None of the four was sunk. John D. Ford was damaged by gunfire. The transports and the patrol boat lost that night are not credited to one ship.
He was awarded the Navy Cross. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox presented it on 11 July 1942, while Talbot still held the rank of commander. The citation says five or six ships, calls the command Destroyer Squadron Fifty-Nine, and dates the night 24-25 January. The ships' reports date the fight 24 January and call the unit Destroyer Division 59.
The Netherlands also honored the Balikpapan night. A royal decree of 18 March 1943 gave him the Bronze Cross, later replaced by the Bronze Lion, for leading the division in a torpedo and gun attack on the Japanese transports in the Makassar Strait.
Talbot was promoted to captain on 17 June 1942. After Balikpapan he served on the staff of the Army-Navy Staff College at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He retired from the Navy in March 1948. His combat record brought advancement to rear admiral on the retired list.