Ships
- USS Abner Read (DD-526) Captain, 14 October 1943 – 1 October 1944
Commander Thomas B. Hutchins III, United States Navy, commanded the Fletcher-class destroyer Abner Read (DD-526) from 14 October 1943 until 1 October 1944. His year in the ship ran from a long repair in a stateside yard through the New Guinea landings of 1944.
He relieved T. Burrowes, the destroyer’s first commanding officer, at the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Bremerton, Washington. Abner Read had just been set on keel blocks for a new stern. On the night of 18 August 1943, while she was patrolling off Kiska under Burrowes, she struck a Japanese mine. The blast tore away her after section, killed or left missing about seventy men, and wounded dozens more. After emergency work in Alaskan ports she was towed south, and Hutchins took her while that rebuilding was only beginning.
The yard restored the after end of the ship over the months that followed. When the work was finished, Abner Read returned to the Pacific and joined the Seventh Fleet for the advance along northern New Guinea.
Under Hutchins she served as a gunfire-support and screening ship for the amphibious landings. On 22 and 23 April 1944 she took part in the Hollandia operation, off Aitape, Humboldt Bay, and Tanahmerah Bay. In May she was on hand for the landings in the Toem–Wakde–Sarmi area. She remained with the fleet through the summer as the campaign moved west along the New Guinea coast.
On 1 October 1944 Hutchins turned Abner Read over to Arthur F. Purdy. The ship went on to the Leyte landings under her new captain. On 1 November 1944, while she was patrolling Leyte Gulf with Task Group 77.1, a Japanese dive bomber struck her. A bomb went down a stack and exploded in an engine room. She rolled onto her starboard side and sank in a little more than half an hour. Other destroyers took off survivors, and more than twenty of her crew were lost. Purdy was in command when she went down. Hutchins had already left the ship.