Ships
- USS Pensacola (CA-24) Captain, 12 June 1943 – May 1944
Randal Euesta Dees (8 October 1893 – 25 July 1972) was a United States Navy officer from Crystal Springs, Mississippi. He graduated eighth in the Naval Academy class of 1917, which was sent to sea early when the United States entered the First World War. He spent the years between the wars alternating between ships and classrooms. He taught at Annapolis twice, completed the Naval War College course, spent two years under instruction at Harvard University, and served as aide for civil administration to the naval governor of Guam. He commanded the destroyer Winslow from 1939 to 1941. In the Second World War he commanded the heavy cruiser Pensacola from June 1943 to May 1944, through the invasion of the Gilbert Islands and the opening of the Marshalls campaign. He received the Silver Star for the Gilberts and the Legion of Merit for the Marshalls. From June 1944 to September 1945 he was Naval Personnel Officer of the Pacific Fleet, the officer responsible for finding men for its ships, and in April 1945 he was made a commodore while in that post. He received a second Legion of Merit for that work. He retired in 1949 and was carried on the retired list as a rear admiral. His name appears in the record as Randal, the spelling the Navy's registers used for most of his career, and also as Randall. His middle name is printed Euesta in the registers, Eusta in his Academy yearbook, and Esta in some postwar lists.
The Navy's registers give his date of birth as 8 October 1893. His Academy yearbook and a Washington newspaper of 1917 both give his home as Crystal Springs, Mississippi, a small town in Copiah County south of Jackson. A short biographical sketch published on a privately run Arlington cemetery website says he was born there and that he earned a bachelor of science degree from Mississippi College in 1912, before entering the Naval Academy. The registers record his entry into the naval service on 30 June 1913, when he was nineteen. If the college degree is correct, he arrived at Annapolis older and better educated than most of his classmates, and that would fit what they later wrote about him.
The sources examined here say nothing about his parents or what they did for a living. They also do not say whether he had brothers or sisters, or why a young man from inland Mississippi chose the Navy. Several other men with similar names served in the same years and are easily confused with him. Rupert Riley Deese was a Marine Corps officer. Benjamin W. Dees was a midshipman around 1930, and Harry Crittenden Dees appears in postwar registers. None of them is connected to Randal Dees by any source examined here.
The 1917 Lucky Bag, the Naval Academy yearbook, gives the only contemporary description of him as a young man. His classmates called him "Duse." They also called him "the Old Man of the Sea," because "sea-going he is, while his serious face and solemn demeanor impress you as that of a wise, old man who watches the playfulness of youth in those around him." The entry pokes fun at how little he said. When someone asked him why he was so quiet, it reports, he answered, "I haven't a word to say, therefore, why say anything?" "If silence were golden," his classmates wrote, "he would be riding in limousines." They added that when he was in the mood he could talk as brilliantly "as that of any social aide."
The yearbook writers took his mind more seriously. "On the Academic field is where he shines, literally speaking; look at his collar." That was a reference to the stars that midshipmen wore for high academic standing, and the entry records that he earned them in three of his four years. "Just natural savviness," they wrote, "for we don't picture him boning very much." He also handled money for his classmates. He managed Reef Points, the midshipmen's handbook, and was business manager of the Lucky Bag itself. His classmates expected that the book would come out "a couple of thousand to the good" under his management. He played two years of class football and qualified as a sharpshooter. He held the rank of midshipman junior lieutenant in the Fifth Company. The yearbook's closing judgment was that he "has a kindly heart within him," and that "he is the right kind of a man to have for a friend and shipmate."
His class finished its course early. On 26 March 1917, eleven days before the United States declared war on Germany, the Washington Post reported that the 183 members of the class of 1917 would graduate "by special order" that Thursday, and it listed the nine "stars" in order of merit. "Randall E. Dees, Crystal Springs, Miss." was eighth. The paper predicted that some of the new officers "may find themselves in a short time in command of U-boat chasers or of gun crews on merchant vessels." The sources examined here do not show where Dees himself served during the war. The privately published biographical sketch says that he commanded the destroyers Flusser and Sharkey from October 1920 to September 1922. The 1926 Register supports the end date: it gives September 1922 as the end of his last sea tour before his next ship.
His career over the next twenty years is well documented in the Navy Directory and the annual registers. Around 1923 and 1924 he was a lieutenant on the faculty of the Naval Academy, listed among the instructors in electrical engineering and physics. From 1924 to 1927 he served in the destroyer tender Dobbin. He became a lieutenant commander in June 1927. He then spent two years as a student. The 1928 Navy Directory lists him under instruction at the Naval Academy, where the Navy's postgraduate school was then located, and the 1929 Directory lists him under instruction at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. From then on the registers credited him with a postgraduate course in general line duties and the War College junior course.
From 1929 to 1931 he served at the naval station on Guam, which the Navy then governed as well as garrisoned. A 1930 directory of Far Eastern officials lists the staff at Guam under "Comdr. W. W. Bradley (governor and commandant)," and among them "Lieut. Comdrs. F. B. Melendy (nav. adm. capt. yard) and R. E. Dees (aide for civil adm.)." The privately published sketch dates the post from July 1929 to July 1931 and calls it aide to the naval governor. On a naval island government, the aide for civil administration dealt with the civilian side of the government rather than the ships and the dockyard. Dees held that post while Bradley was governor. No source examined here describes Dees's part in Bradley's administration. A National Archives finding aid for the 1930 census of Guam lists a Pauline L. Dees as the enumerator for the first enumeration district. The record does not state her relationship to him.
From 1931 to 1933 the Navy Directory lists him "under instruction" at Harvard University. From 1934 onward the registers credit him with a postgraduate course in international law and relations. In 1934 and 1935 he was gunnery officer of the heavy cruiser Chicago. In 1936 he returned to Annapolis, this time to the Department of Mathematics. He was promoted to commander on 3 June 1937 and stayed at the Academy until 1939. Taken together, these assignments made him a scholar's officer: two teaching tours, two years of postgraduate study, the War College, and a law course at a civilian university. Between them he held the line duties expected of a career officer, but he had not yet had a major sea command.
He got one in 1939. The 1940 Register lists him as "Commanding Winslow." Ship-listing compilations date the command from 9 June 1939 to 20 June 1941. The Winslow was one of eight large destroyers of the Porter class, built to lead destroyer squadrons and more heavily armed than ordinary destroyers. Her official history records that in those years she operated from San Diego in the eastern Pacific, between Hawaii and the West Coast. In April 1941 she passed through the Panama Canal to Norfolk, as the Navy shifted ships to the Atlantic. Dees left her soon after. The 1941 Navy Directory lists him on the staff of the Naval War College. The privately published sketch gives June 1941 to June 1943 for that tour. He was therefore ashore in Newport when the United States entered the war. The registers record his temporary promotion to captain on 1 January 1942 and his permanent rank of captain from 30 June 1942. No source examined here describes his work at the War College in the first eighteen months of the war.
He took command of the heavy cruiser Pensacola in June 1943. Ship-listing compilations give the date as 12 June. He was forty-nine. The ship had a hard recent history. At the Battle of Tassafaronga, off Guadalcanal on the night of 30 November 1942, a Japanese torpedo had hit her below the mainmast and set her oil tanks burning. Her official history records 7 officers and 118 men killed. She was patched up at Tulagi and Espiritu Santo and reached Pearl Harbor at the end of January 1943. That history records nothing more until November. Dees took over a ship that had nearly burned, with a crew that had lost more than a hundred shipmates.
On 8 November 1943 the Pensacola sailed from Pearl Harbor for the invasion of the Gilbert Islands. Morison's official history lists her in Rear Admiral E. G. Small's Cruiser Division 5, "PENSACOLA Capt. R. E. Dees," together with the Chester, Salt Lake City and Oakland. That division was part of the screen of Rear Admiral A. E. Montgomery's Southern Carrier Group: the carriers Essex, Bunker Hill and Independence. On 19 November, the day before the Marines landed at Tarawa, the Pensacola made bombardment runs against Betio, the fortified island at the center of the atoll. Her official history credits her with firing 600 rounds at coast defense guns, beach defenses and buildings. On the 20th, as the landings began, she screened the carriers launching air strikes for the troops ashore.
That evening the Japanese struck back. Morison describes sixteen torpedo bombers, half from Roi and half from Maloelap, coming in low over the water while Montgomery's group lay about thirty miles west of Tarawa recovering its planes. "All ships opened fire." Nine bombers broke through. Three attacked the Essex and Bunker Hill and were shot down. The other six went for the Independence and put a torpedo into her. She lost 17 killed and 43 wounded, and her after engine room, fireroom and magazine flooded. The Pensacola's official history records that she fought off the torpedo planes that night and helped the damaged carrier into Funafuti in the Ellice Islands. For the next two months she operated from Funafuti, screening carriers that covered the convoys carrying reinforcements and supplies to the Gilberts.
His Silver Star citation, issued by the Pacific Fleet Board of Awards in May 1944, describes these days from the captain's point of view. It credits him with "valiantly maintaining position in the Task Group within easy bombing range of Japanese bases for a period of eight days." It says he directed "the vigorous bombardment of hostile shore installations at Betio Island," and that "although under fire from shore batteries and twice subjected to severe aerial torpedo attack," he "brought the PENSACOLA through undamaged." For a captain whose ship had been gutted by one torpedo less than a year earlier, the last phrase meant something specific. Against low-flying torpedo planes, survival depended on the gunners and on how quickly the ship was turned to present her narrow bow or stern to a torpedo. The citation does not describe the maneuvers. No action report by Dees himself has been found.
The invasion of the Marshall Islands began at the end of January 1944. For it the Pensacola served in Task Group 50.15, the Neutralization Group, again under Rear Admiral Small, with the Chester, the Salt Lake City, a destroyer screen and two minelayers. Morison lists her captain there as well. The plan for the Marshalls was to seize Kwajalein and Majuro and bypass the other Japanese-held atolls, Wotje, Maloelap, Mili and Jaluit, keeping their airfields out of action. Small's cruisers had the job of keeping them out of action by shelling them. On the night of 29 January, the Pensacola helped bombard Taroa, the airfield island of Maloelap Atoll. She then fired on runways, seaplane ramps, ammunition storage and buildings on Wotje while Marines and soldiers landed at Kwajalein and Majuro on the 31st. Her official history records that she went on hitting Taroa through 18 February, then patrolled the approaches to the Marshalls from Majuro and Kwajalein. At the end of March she screened the fast carriers in their raids on Palau, Yap, Ulithi and Woleai.
His Legion of Merit citation, issued in September 1944, covers 23 January to 17 March 1944. It calls him "a superb seaman, directing his command with courageous and inspiring leadership." It mentions several bombardments of Wotje in January and February and of Taroa on 30 and 31 January. The citation also adds a detail that the ship's history leaves out: "As the Commander of a Task Group on independent duty during a portion of this period, Captain Dees led his command boldly and with great tactical skill." For part of the campaign, then, he had a small force of his own and made the tactical decisions himself. The citation does not say which ships he commanded or exactly when. The bypassed atolls were dangerous targets. In the bombardment of Wotje on 30 January by another cruiser group, a Japanese shore battery hit the destroyer Anderson on her combat information center and killed her captain, Commander John G. Tennent. A captain who held his ship off those beaches for days at a time was weighing the value of the shelling against the risk from guns that were often well hidden.
The Pensacola left Majuro on 25 April 1944 and steamed by way of Pearl Harbor to Mare Island, California. Compilations date the end of Dees's command to 19 May 1944. In June the ship went north to the Kuriles under another captain. Dees's eleven months in command had covered two amphibious campaigns, and in that time the ship that had nearly burned at Tassafaronga had been brought back into the fight without, so far as the record shows, being hit.
His next post was ashore, but its scale was very large. From June 1944 to September 1945 he was Naval Personnel Officer, United States Pacific Fleet. The privately published sketch places the work on the staff of Commander Service Force, Pacific Fleet, the command that supplied and maintained the fleet. That was the period of the Marianas, Leyte, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, when hundreds of new ships were joining the Pacific Fleet and kamikaze attacks were killing their crews in numbers the Navy had not seen before. Someone had to find officers and men for every new ship and to replace every man killed, wounded or worn out. In the words of his second Legion of Merit citation, he was responsible for "the procurement and distribution of all enlisted and officer personnel," and "at a time when the personnel demands very often exceeded the supply he organized and administered his rapidly expanding department to fulfill a maximum of personnel requirements for ships and units of the Pacific Fleet." The citation adds that "he provided welfare and recreational facilities for the entire Pacific Ocean Area." For men on remote islands and anchorages, that meant the recreation areas, movies and athletic fields that made the long months between operations bearable. The Senate's executive calendar for 3 April 1945 lists the nomination of "Randall E. Dees" to be commodore, "to continue while serving as personnel officer, Pacific Fleet." The registers date the rank from 3 April 1945. Commodore was a wartime grade between captain and rear admiral, given for a specific post and lapsing when the post ended. The 1945 Register marks his name with the symbols for the Legion of Merit and the Silver Star.
The sketch says he remained on the staff of Commander Service Force, Pacific Fleet, until May 1946. The 1947 Register lists him again as a captain, his permanent rank. The sources examined here do not show what he did between the spring of 1946 and his retirement. The registers and compilations agree that he retired in July 1949. The retired list for 1950 and later years carries him as a rear admiral and also records the commodore's rank he had held from April 1945. In the retired-list entries of the early 1950s his name appears as "Randall Esta Dees." The 1960 list prints it as "Randal Euesta Dees," the form used in his wartime registers.
He died on 25 July 1972, at the age of seventy-eight. The sources examined here do not say where he died or what he died of. The privately run Arlington cemetery website gives his burial place as Section 5, Site 121, Arlington National Cemetery. No obituary was found. Nothing found here establishes whether he married or had children. The Pauline L. Dees who took the census on Guam in 1930 may have been a relative, but no source examined connects them.
What survives of him in public sources is a short, consistent record. As a midshipman his classmates saw a quiet, very able young man who was trusted with money and well liked. His career between the wars alternated between ships and study. As a captain, the record shows him keeping his ship on station within reach of Japanese bombers and shore guns in the Gilberts and Marshalls, and bringing her through the Gilberts undamaged. In his last wartime post his work was supplying men to a fleet that was losing them faster than ever before. The verdict his classmates wrote in 1917, that he was "the right kind of a man to have for a friend and shipmate," is the closest thing in the record to a personal portrait of him.