Ships
- USS Turkey (AM-13) Lieutenant commander, 30 June 1941 – 21 April 1943 · In command on 7 December 1941 · Naval Academy class of 1925 · He was not on board when the attack opened. His report says he came aboard after Turkey had backed clear of the nest
Thompson Fletcher Fowler was commanding officer of the minesweeper Turkey on 7 December 1941. He was not on board when the attack opened. NavSource lists him as a lieutenant commander, United States Navy, class of 1925 at the Naval Academy, in command from 30 June 1941 to 21 April 1943.
No birth date, birthplace, or family is given on the NavSource command line or in Turkey's action report. Those facts were not found in a Navy register for this account.
The Naval Academy class of 1925 is what NavSource prints beside his name. It is a class year, not a rank, and it is not a record of his companies, his cruise, or his first ships. Nothing in the sources used here describes his duty between graduation and 30 June 1941, when the same list says he relieved Lieutenant Commander Harry Roberts Carson, Jr., in Turkey.
Turkey was already at Pearl Harbor. Fowler's report of 17 December 1941 says that when the attack developed she was moored with three other minesweepers at the Coal Dock. Ensign R. J. Melchor, Naval Reserve, a reserve officer of six months' sea duty, was duty officer. Fowler calls him, for that time, duty officer and commanding officer. The ship opened fire with the 3-inch/50 battery, the .30-caliber machine guns, and rifles. Boatswain J. Eikam, the executive officer, returned about 0805, which Fowler puts at about twenty minutes after the attack started. Turkey was the second ship outboard of the four. When the outboard ship cleared, she backed clear and anchored in the stream. Fowler arrived after she had backed clear.
The ship expended 37 rounds of 3-inch/50 ammunition and about 2,350 rounds of .30 caliber. One plane fired at only by the four minesweepers began to smoke, lost altitude, and passed out of sight. Fowler wrote that it was believed destroyed and that no one vessel could claim it. Turkey was not herself attacked. Shrapnel and spent bullets fell on and near her. There were no personnel casualties and no material casualties. He praised the crew as a whole and said that what Melchor and Eikam did was the proper thing. He did not write a longer account of his own movements ashore.
The ship's history says Turkey and her sisters worked at salvage on the damaged battleships until 1 April 1942, then went to Samoa, where she relieved Kingfisher as station ship. On 1 June 1942 she was reclassified the ocean tug AT-143. She swept, escorted, towed targets for Marine batteries, and supported Marine raider exercises through the end of 1942 and into 1943. On 14 April 1943, still inside Fowler's tour, she stopped at Bowditch Island and found two castaways who had been there nearly a month and were in good condition. NavSource dates his relief, by Lieutenant Samuel Burl Neff, on 21 April 1943, the day her repair period of 21 to 30 April began. The station-ship duty at Tutuila that followed those repairs falls under his successor.
No later ship, no promotion, and no retirement or death date were found. The sources stop at the NavSource end date of 21 April 1943.