Ships
- USS Richard P. Leary (DD-664) Captain from 2 September 1945
Wayne William Watkins was an officer of the United States Naval Reserve who took command of the Fletcher-class destroyer Richard P. Leary on 2 September 1945, the day the Japanese signed the surrender in Tokyo Bay. He was a lieutenant commander. He came aboard by breeches buoy from the destroyer Fullam while the Leary was patrolling off northern Honshu, and he commanded her through the postwar months until she was decommissioned on 10 December 1946. Almost nothing else is recorded of him.
The sources examined here give no birth date, birthplace, parents, schooling or civilian occupation for him. As a Reserve officer he does not appear in the Naval Academy's yearbooks, and no sketch of him in his youth has been found. The Navy's own cruise book for the ship prints his name as "Lt. Commander Wayne W. Watkins, USNR."
Nothing about his path into the Naval Reserve, his training, or his service before 1945 was found in the sources examined here.
The Richard P. Leary was commissioned on 23 February 1944 at the Boston Navy Yard. In the cruise book's words, she was "placed in commission by Captain R. C. Grady, USN (Ret.)," and Commander Frederic S. Habecker assumed command. The ship went on to the Pacific, took part in the capture of Saipan, Tinian and Guam, and fought in the Battle of Surigao Strait, at Lingayen Gulf, at Iwo Jima and at Okinawa. Commander Habecker received the Navy Cross for Surigao Strait. In the autumn of 1944 and early 1945 the ship fought under him and under Commander Duncan P. Dixon Jr. Watkins joined her only after the Japanese had accepted the surrender terms.
In August 1945 the Leary was sent to the Aleutians, where she was to stand by to attack the northern islands of Japan. As the ship dropped anchor in Kuluk Bay at Adak, the Japanese acceptance of the Potsdam terms was announced. On 31 August, the cruise book says, Captain Herald F. Stout, the commander of Destroyer Squadron 56, relieved Commander Dixon as commanding officer of the ship. "September 2," it continues. "Lt. Commander Wayne W. Watkins, USNR, came aboard by breeches buoy from USS FULLAM, relieving Captain H. F. Stout as Commanding officer."
The transfer, then, was made at sea, with a line rigged between two destroyers, on the same day the surrender was signed. The cruise book does not say where Watkins had been serving before the transfer, or why he was chosen. The sources examined here do not describe the transfer beyond that line.
The ship patrolled the waters off northern Honshu, anchored in Tokyo Bay on 27 September, and after eighteen months in the Pacific sailed for Pearl Harbor and the homeward leg. She arrived at Puget Sound, completed her overhaul, and went to San Diego to be inactivated. A compilation of commanding officers lists Watkins in command from 2 September 1945 to the ship's decommissioning on 10 December 1946.
The sources examined here give no later record of him: not his return to civil life, nor his marriage, children, death or burial.
He is the man who commanded the Leary in peace, from the day after the war ended in the Pacific until she was laid up. The cruise book gives him a single sentence.