Ships
- USS William D. Porter (DD-579) Captain, 6 July 1943 – 14 November 1943
Wilfred Aves Walter (13 January 1908–12 August 1996) was a United States Navy officer, born at Florence, Kansas, who entered the Naval Academy from Los Angeles and graduated with the class of 1930. As a lieutenant commander he was the first commanding officer of the destroyer William D. Porter (DD-579), which on 14 November 1943 accidentally fired a live torpedo toward the battleship Iowa, then carrying President Franklin D. Roosevelt toward the Tehran Conference. He remained in command of the destroyer for nearly seven months afterward, later commanded the attack cargo ship Muliphen, and retired in October 1959 as a rear admiral.
He was born on 13 January 1908 at Florence, Kansas, according to the Navy Memorial's registry and uboat.net. The 1930 Lucky Bag (the Academy yearbook) tells a story of his youth: "ABOUT ten years ago out in that land where 'men are men' and the weather is always invigorating," a "robust young lad used to 'ride fence' during the day and sleep with his head on a saddle and his feet to the fire right alongside a group of old cowpunchers." The class book says that this "young cowboy tired of ranch life, moved to Kansas City, and later took up residence in the fair city of Los Angeles," where he "watched the pride of Uncle Sam's fleet steam in and out of the harbor at San Pedro" and "caught the fever." His "earnest endeavors won him an appointment." His parents are not named in the sources examined here, and the ranch is not located.
The class book gives his nicknames as "Wilfred," "Walt" and "Puck," and his home as Los Angeles. In autumn he played football with "the 'Hustlers,'" in winter he wrestled, and in spring he threw the discus. He was, the writers say, "a cheery, good-natured, likable fellow with a naturally brilliant and analytical mind," who was "never too busy to straighten out any of the difficulties with which his less brilliant classmates come to him for assistance." They call him "a true and loyal friend, a splendid roommate," and "truly a successful officer-to-be." The sketch ends with a line in quotation marks, which the book offers as his own: "Bilged again!—went down to the third section!"
The Navy Directories follow his early service. As an ensign he was in the battleship West Virginia in 1930 and 1931, in the destroyer Waters in 1932 and 1933, and in the Hale later in 1933. As a lieutenant (junior grade) he served in the cruiser Trenton from 1934 to 1935. He was an instructor at the Naval Academy in 1937 and, as a lieutenant, was on instruction duty there in 1938 and at the Navy Yard, Washington, in 1938 and 1939. In 1940 and 1941 he was in the destroyer Mustin as gunnery officer. Uboat.net gives his date of rank as lieutenant as 30 June 1937 and as temporary lieutenant commander 1 January 1942.
On 31 July 1942, at thirty-four, he took command of the destroyer MacLeish (DD-220), which uboat.net lists until 11 April 1943. The ship's history says that by February 1943 she had escorted twelve convoys between Norfolk and Key West and nine between New York and Guantánamo Bay, and that, as the demand for transatlantic escorts grew, she then made two voyages between New York and Casablanca. Her service with the escort carrier groups began in June 1943, after he had left. The history does not name her captain, and no account by him of that year has been found.
On 6 July 1943, at thirty-five, he went to Orange, Texas, to take command of the brand-new William D. Porter at her commissioning. She was a Fletcher-class destroyer, named for Commander William D. Porter, the Civil War captain of the ironclad Essex. After shakedown at Guantánamo Bay and post-shakedown repairs at Charleston, she spent about five weeks at Norfolk conducting battle practice with Intrepid and other ships. On 12 November she left Norfolk and the next day joined the Iowa, bound for North Africa with the President aboard.
On the afternoon of 14 November, the Navy's history records, "during battle drills ... William D. Porter inadvertently fired a live torpedo at Iowa." The ship's deck log, quoted in Naval History magazine, reads: "1436 Torpedo accidentally fired from #2 mount while torpedo battery was exercising at drills. Investigation being held." Because radio silence was in force, the Porter first tried a signal lamp; the first message wrongly gave the torpedo's approach as from the port side, and the second said that the destroyer was in full reverse. Finally the destroyer sent in the clear, "Lion, Lion, Lion! Come right, come hard right!" The Iowa turned, and two minutes later her people felt a concussion as the torpedo exploded in her wake. The destroyer admitted that a primer had not been removed from one of the tubes. At Bermuda, where she arrived on 16 November, an inquiry led to the court-martial of a chief torpedoman's mate, Lawton C. Dawson, who was reduced one grade; the magazine reports that President Roosevelt asked that no punishment be meted out.
Walter remained in command until 30 May 1944, according to Naval History. In that period the ship returned to Norfolk, went by way of the Panama Canal and San Diego to Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands, arriving on 29 December 1943, and served with Task Force 94, mostly as an antisubmarine escort. She was at Pearl Harbor from 22 January 1944 and then escorted the destroyer tender Black Hawk to Adak. She began her Kuril Islands bombardments only after he had left. The ship was sunk by a kamikaze off Okinawa on 10 June 1945, with her entire crew saved. The sources examined here give no letter or recollection from Walter about the torpedo.
He reached the rank of commander by the 1944 Register of Commissioned Officers, and uboat.net gives temporary captain from 22 July 1948. The ship list for Muliphen (AKA-61), kept by NavSource, shows him as her captain from 12 July 1952 to 23 June 1953, when the ship was in the Atlantic Fleet's amphibious force. The Navy Memorial's registry gives his rank as rear admiral and his service dates as June 1930 to October 1959, and lists his duty stations as Muliphen, William D. Porter and Trenton. He died on 12 August 1996, in Orange County, California, at eighty-eight. No marriage, children, obituary or burial place was found.
His name is attached to a single afternoon off the Atlantic coast, but the record of his career is of a gunnery officer who commanded a convoy destroyer, then a new one, and then, nine years later, an amphibious ship, before retiring after twenty-nine years of service.