Machinist’s Mate, Second Class Ralph Lowell Smith KIA POW 3560402

Machinist’s Mate, Second Class Ralph Lowell Smith KIA POW 3560402 US Navy. Was born 2 March 1920 in Tonkawa, Oklahoma. Attended schools in Ponca City, Oklahoma, and joined the Navy on 13 May 1937 at the age of 17. Trained at San Diego, California, and served aboard the USS RIGEL AR-11, USS CANOPUS, and USS PIGEON, and won two Presidential Unit Citation (PUC) s . The first for the excellent fighting ability displayed by the Personnel of the PIGEON in shooting down several attacking Japanese aircraft during the month of December 1941, and again for the outstanding and courageous Performance of the ships crew on the occasion of the enemy aerial attack on Cavite Navy Yard 10 December 1941, when the vessel, despite severe bombing attacks and without the use of regular steering equipment, towed the submarine SEADRAGON to safety an assisted in clearing other craft from the docks, then a raging inferno.  With the fall of Corregidor, he was taken prisoner in the Manila Bay area on 10 May 1942, and moved to Bilibid Prison. (PTO) While being transferred, his unmarked prison ship named the Arisan Maru was torpedoed and sunk off the China coast on 24 October 1944. Machinist’s Mate Powell did not survive the sinking. Posthumously awarded the Purple Heart Medal (PHM),  American Defense Medal, The Asiatic Pacific Theater of operations, World War Two Victory Medal, he was the son of Mrs. Eva Mae Lain of Creede, Colorado. 

 

Source:

1- THE FIGHTING MEN OF Colorado – Asiatic-Pacific Theater World War Two – 1948

2- http://valor.militarytimes.com/recipient.php?recipientid=304419