Ships
- USS Dayton (CL-105) Captain from 6 July 1948 · Relieved on 9 December 1948
William Vincent O'Regan commanded Dayton (CL-105) from 6 July 1948 to 9 December 1948. NavSource lists him as a captain and leaves the final-rank column blank. Wikipedia says he retired in 1958 and was advanced to vice admiral on the retired list for his wartime service.
He was born in New York, New York, on 25 April 1900, and was raised on Staten Island. He died on 13 January 1978, at 77, at the Veterans Administration hospital in Palo Alto, California. After retirement he lived in Los Altos and taught mathematics at Mountain View High School for twelve years. Wikipedia says he and his wife, Louise Farren O'Regan, were buried at Arlington National Cemetery, and that they had two sons and five grandchildren.
He was appointed to the Naval Academy in 1919, graduated in 1923, and was commissioned ensign. He trained as a submarine engineering officer and served in submarines and at submarine bases. Wikipedia says he was never given an individual submarine to command. The article's command list, without dates except where noted below, names a naval detachment at the New York World's Fair, Submarine Repair Unit Two, the Submarine Repair Unit at Pearl Harbor, the submarine base at Midway, Submarine Division 42, and Submarine Squadron 4.
During the war he commanded Submarine Squadron 4, Thresher, Guardfish, Apogon, and Piranha. Wikipedia says that in June and July 1944 he led that squadron, nicknamed the Mickey Finns, on a patrol near Formosa in the East China Sea, and that the shipping his submarines destroyed earned him the Navy Cross. The article does not print the citation. It says he also received the Legion of Merit for his wartime service. His nickname on the page is Mickey.
Wikipedia says that after the war he briefly commanded the cruiser Dayton in 1948. NavSource dates that command from 6 July 1948 to 9 December 1948. He relieved Captain Edward Robison Durgin after the ship's return to Boston on 26 June 1948, and Captain Alvin Franklin Richardson relieved him on 9 December, before the 1 March 1949 decommissioning. Promoted to rear admiral, he took command of Cruiser Division 5 in September 1952. Wikipedia says that during the Korean War he earned a second Legion of Merit for leading the division off the North Korean coast from November 1952 to April 1953. From 1953 to 1957 he was assistant chief of naval operations for logistics. A photograph caption on the article places him as a rear admiral with Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz in 1957. His last duty was command of the Mare Island Naval Shipyard. He retired from active duty in 1958 and was advanced to vice admiral on the retired list.