Navy rules of engagement permitted immediate attack on any unknown submarine contacts in the vicinity of U.S. Navy commanders in the Far East that Soviet submarines were a serious potential threat,” according to a January 2021 posting by the Naval History and Heritage Command. had already confirmed that the Soviets had given an “enormous number” of mines to the North Koreans, and there was “considerable concern among U.S. Turner Joy were about to begin on July 10, 1951.Īt the time, the U.S. If the ruling was that a torpedo from a Soviet submarine - and not a mine - had hit the Walke, it would confirm that a new theater of war had opened just as preliminary peace talks led by Vice Adm. The after action reports and investigations to determine what happened to the Walke posed a dilemma for the Navy. “In fact, she is the one who helped us.” Ship’s Proud Combat Legacy “We did not help Mitoko by paying for her scholarship,” Thompson recalled then. She became a nurse and worked for the Red Cross, and as a wife and mother, Mitoko Yamachi reunited in the 1990s with Thompson and other members of the Walke crew in San Diego. Steel plates were welded over the gaping hole in the Walke’s port side, and in July 1951, the Walke set course for Mare Island Naval Shipyard in California for more permanent repairs, but before leaving, Thompson and the crew set up a bank account with a scholarship fund for Mitoko. She was what the Japanese called an “atomic bomb orphan.” Mitoko’s mother was killed, and her father later died of radiation poisoning. 9, 1945, when an atomic bomb named “Fat Man” exploded over Nagasaki. A girl from the school they came to know only as Mitoko was a constant presence, cheering up the sailors with her boundless curiosity and enthusiasm. In Sasebo, the repair dock was next to a field used by the crew to play baseball, and the field adjoined a junior high school. The damage inflicted on the USS Walke was the deadliest day for the U.S.
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