Ships
- USS Hoel (DD-533) Captain from 29 July 1943 · Screen commander, 25 October 1944
William Dow Thomas was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on 4 April 1904. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1928 and went to sea in the battleship West Virginia. In 1930 he trained for submarines at New London, and he remained in the submarine force until 1935.
Before he received a ship of his own he was executive officer of the Fletcher-class destroyer Claxton. On 29 July 1943, Commander Thomas commissioned Hoel (DD-533). Bethlehem Steel had built the Fletcher-class destroyer at San Francisco.
Hoel left San Francisco Bay on 16 August 1943 for shakedown training out of San Diego. In those weeks she dropped depth charges seven times on a sound contact, and the result of the attacks was never established. After a final yard period at Mare Island she sailed on 26 October in the screen of a convoy and reached Pearl Harbor on 31 October. The commander of Destroyer Squadron 47 then moved his flag to her from Heermann. She worked with the fleet through the Gilberts operations. On the night of 27 November, ships in her company turned together under air attack and came through without a hit. The squadron commander shifted his flag from Hoel to McCord on 14 December.
In January 1944 she left Pearl Harbor in the transport screen of a reserve group and stood to the east of Kwajalein while troops went ashore on 31 January. That spring she worked from Purvis Bay in the Solomons, taking a convoy to Emirau Island in April and then training and escorting for Rear Admiral R. W. Hayler of Cruiser Division 12. In mid-August she joined the Third Amphibious Force as it prepared for the landings in the Palaus. Thomas had commanded her through that first year. The day he turned Hoel over to Leon S. Kintberger is not known. He remained on board.
By the morning of 25 October 1944, off Samar, Kintberger had the ship. Thomas was aboard as commander of the screen for the small escort-carrier unit. The Japanese center force came out of the squall. Johnston turned toward them. Hoel went in with her. A salvo hit the bridge. Thomas and Kintberger were both wounded.
Thomas lived. He was given the Navy Cross for his conduct as screen commander that morning. He had placed the destroyers and destroyer escorts between the escort carriers and the Japanese battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, and he had organized a torpedo attack pressed in to short range under heavy gunfire. Hoel was sunk. His wounds kept him in hospital until February 1945, and he received the Purple Heart as well as the Navy Cross. He later commanded Naval Air Station St. Simons Island, Georgia, retired in 1947 as a rear admiral, and died in 1968.