Ships
- USS Fuller (AP-14) In command, 7 August 1942
Paul S. Theiss was born on 6 October 1890 in Washington, D.C., and his home was Indiana, Pennsylvania. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy with the class of 1912 and served as a line officer of the United States Navy. He retired as a rear admiral and died on 3 June 1956.
In the spring of 1941 the Navy gave him command of the transport Fuller (AP-14). The ship had been a commercial passenger and cargo vessel. The Navy acquired her in November 1940 and converted her to carry troops and landing boats. She went into full commission on 9 April 1941 with Captain Theiss in command, and her crew spent the late spring learning to handle the craft that would put Marines on a beach.
Fuller joined the Atlantic Fleet at Charleston on 15 June 1941. On 22 June she sailed in the convoy that carried the first Marine troops to the American occupation of Iceland, and she was back at Norfolk on 22 July. Training with Marines along the North Carolina coast, and with her transport division around Norfolk, filled the months that followed. On 5 December she left Hampton Roads with Marines bound for Cuba, the Canal Zone, and Puerto Rico. After further exercises with soldiers in Lynnhaven Roads, she carried troops and cargo to Northern Ireland between 19 February and 25 March 1942.
On 10 April 1942 Fuller sailed from Norfolk for the South Pacific and reached Wellington, New Zealand, on 22 May. She took Marines and their equipment aboard and moved north for the Solomon Islands. On 7 August 1942, with Captain Theiss in command, she landed those troops in the opening assault on Guadalcanal. The same day he was acting commander of a transport division. Japanese aircraft attacked the ships off the beaches repeatedly. He kept the division in hand so that the vessels under his orders came through undamaged, and the landing went forward.
He stayed with the Guadalcanal campaign after the first day ashore. From 7 to 15 September 1942 he commanded a task unit of seven ships and landed reinforcements and supplies for the Marines on the island. Enemy planes struck during that run as well, and again the ships he led were undamaged. His conduct as acting division commander on the day of the assault, and as commander of the September task unit, brought him the Navy Cross.
Fuller continued to sail from Wellington with men and cargo for Guadalcanal and other South Pacific bases, often under Japanese air attack, and Theiss remained her captain until 4 January 1943. Later in the war, still a captain, he had charge of the assault flotilla that put the first American troops ashore on New Georgia. He then scouted coasts chosen for later beachheads, repeatedly while under enemy fire, and received the Legion of Merit for that work. After the war the Navy advanced him to commodore. He commanded the Naval Training Station at Newport, Rhode Island, from 3 January to 6 August 1946 and again from 1 November 1946 to 29 June 1949.