The Most Successful Medal of Honor Winner Rear Admiral Richard H. “Dick” O’Kane.

Richard O ‘Kane was the commanding officer of the USS TANG during World War II. O’Kane claimed eight ships at the time but post-war analysis increased this to ten ships. On one attack she had targeted two large ships with three torpedoes each and assumed three hits in each. Japanese records actually reported two hits in each with the third of each spread hitting smaller ships in the next column. This surpassed the next highest patrol which was for the USS WAHOO, with O ‘Kane as XO, in the same area the year before.

He was captured by the Japanese when his boat was sunk in the Formosa Strait by its own flawed torpedo (running in a circle) during a surface night attack on October 24–25, 1944 wherein he lost all but eight of his crew, and was secretly (i.e. illegally) held prisoner until the war’s end some ten months later. Following his release, Commander O’Kane received the Medal of Honor for his “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity” during his submarine’s final operations against Japanese shipping.

CDR O’Kane’s Medal of Honor citation reads in part:

“…For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his own life above and beyond the call of duty as commanding officer of the U.S.S. TANG operating against 2 enemy Japanese convoys on 23 and 24 October 1944, during her fifth and last war patrol. Boldly maneuvering on the surface into the midst of a heavily escorted convoy, CDR. O’Kane stood in the fusillade of bullets and shells from all directions to launch smashing hits on 3 tankers, he swung his ship to fire at a freighter and, in a split-second decision, shot out of the path of an onrushing transport, missing it by inches. Boxed in by blazing tankers, a freighter, transport, and several destroyers, he blasted 2 of the targets with his remaining torpedoes and, with pyrotechnics bursting on all sides, cleared the area. Twenty-four hours later, he again made contact with a heavily escorted convoy steaming to support the Leyte campaign with reinforcements and supplies and with crated planes piled high on each unit. In defiance of the enemy’s relentless fire, he closed the concentration of ship and in quick succession sent 2 torpedoes each into the first and second transports and an adjacent tanker, finding his mark with each torpedo in a series of violent explosions at less than l,000-yard range. With ships bearing down from all sides, he charged the enemy at high speed, exploding the tanker in a burst of flame, smashing the transport dead in the water, and blasting the destroyer with a mighty roar which rocked the TANG from stem to stern. Expending his last 2 torpedoes into the remnants of a once powerful convoy before his own ship went down, CDR O’Kane, aided by his gallant command, achieved an illustrious record of heroism in combat, enhancing the finest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.”