Samuel David Dealey, Jr.

Dealey's signature move was to charge. The Handbook of Texas says he was known for heading straight toward enemy destroyers and firing his forward tubes before the usual dive to silent running, a risky tactic he used with the Pacific commander's permission; it sank five Japanese destroyers in four days. He also rescued an Allied pilot from a raft off a Japanese-held island under fire. He failed to keep his grades up at the Naval Academy in 1925 and reentered in 1926. In 1994 a neglected plaque to him moved from Galveston to Fair Park.

What the plaque says

Samuel David Dealey, Jr. Samuel David Dealey, Jr., born on September 13, 1906, to Samuel David and Virgie Downing Dealey of Dallas, became one of the most audacious and successful submariners in the navy serving in the pacific during World War II. After his father died in 1912, the family moved to Colorado and then to Santa Monica, California, before returning to Dallas' Oak Cliff neighborhood in 1923. He graduated from Oak Cliff (W.H. Adamson) High School in 1925 and graduated from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1930. Beginning in the spring of 1943, Dealey commanded the USS Harder (SS-257) in a legendary series of successful war patrols against the Imperial Japanese fleet and Japanese shipping. The boat, whose motto was "hit 'em again, harder," earned the Presidential Unit Citation (following the fifth war patrol) and six battle stars. His aggressive leadership and the USS Harder's steadfast efforts directly contributed to and influenced the overall success of the American Pacific Submarine Campaign, sinking 16 enemy vessels, which ranked him fifth among submarine skippers during the war in confirmed ships sunk. Dealey's military prowess and valiant fighting spirit also earned him the respect and loyalty of his shipmates. Commander Dealey and his incomparable crew lost their lives on August 24, 1944, on their sixth patrol near Dasol Bay, Luzon, off the west coast of the Philippines. Dealey was one of seven submarine officers awarded the medal of honor and was the most highly decorated sailor of World War II. He left behind his wife, Edwina Vawter of Santa Monica, and three children. (2015)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza — 1.6 mi
  A plow-company warehouse of 1903, identified by the Warren Commission as the building Oswald fired from, now a museum on its sixth and seventh floors above Dealey Plaza.
• Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park — 2.2 mi
  Dallas's first city park, laid out around Browder's Spring in 1876, now a museum of historic buildings moved here from across North Texas, among them Millermore, a cotton planter's mansion.
• Dallas Museum of Art — 2.3 mi
  A city art museum that began as the Dallas Art Association in 1903, grew up in Fair Park, and has stood in the Arts District since 1984 under a forty-foot barrel vault.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 3.5 mi
  Founded in 1974 at Bishop College, a free Fair Park museum holding the Sepia photograph archive, African art and A. Maceo Smith's papers, and the story of the Hall of Negro Life.

More markers nearby

• Frank Reagh — 0.3 mi
• Officer J.D. Tippit — 0.8 mi
• W. H. Adamson High School — 0.8 mi
• Tenth Street Historic District Freedmans Town — 0.9 mi