THEODORE EDSON CHANDLER

Theodore Edson Chandler was born at Annapolis on 26 December 1894 into a distinguished Navy family.  His father, the future RADM Lloyd H. Chandler, attended the Naval Academy at the time.  Young Chandler followed in his father’s footsteps, entering the Naval Academy in 1911.  After a combat tour on the WWI destroyer CONNER (DD-72) he assumed the position of executive officer aboard the newly launched destroyer CHANDLER (DD-206).  That ship had been named in honor of Chandler’s late grandfather, William Eaton Chandler, President Chester Arthur’s Secretary of the Navy.  Theodore served between the Wars aboard several battleships and destroyers, even aspiring to a brief tour with the office of the Chief of Naval Operations.

In the months before the still neutral US entered WWII, (now) CAPT T.E. Chandler commanded OMAHA (CL-4) in the Atlantic Fleet’s Neutrality Patrol.  One task in this employ was to enforce international laws governing ships of combatant nations who might call on American ports.  In the wee hours of 6 November 1941 OMAHA came across a curiously darkened ship out of Philadelphia showing the name Willmoto.  A suspicious Chandler stopped the freighter, who proved in truth to be the German blockade runner Odenwald, illegally running rubber to the Weimar Republic.  “Willmoto” was taken into custody.  Soon-to-be-changed Navy regs required that Chandler supervise her sale at public auction, the last instance in our Navy’s history when a warship’s crew shared “prize money.”  Chandler was promoted to RADM in May of 1943 and transferred to the Pacific in October 1944.  He served under VADM Jesse B. Oldendorf as commander BatDiv 2 during the battle of Leyte Gulf and the liberation of the Philippines.

Then at 1730 on 6 January 1945 a Japanese kamikaze crashed the starboard bridge of USS LOUISVILLE (CA-28), flagship of Commander PacFlt Cruiser Division 4, RADM T.E. Chandler, operating in the Lingayen Gulf in support of the Allied invasion of Luzon.  Chandler was thrown to the deck and doused with flaming gasoline.  Heedless of his severe burns however, he pitched in with his enlisted rates, manhandling fire hoses and supervising damage control.  He patiently waited for medical aid, allowing those more seriously injured to be attended.  Only when he had been satisfied that the needs his sailors had been met did he allow himself to be treated.  But by then the effects of his pulmonary burns were too severe to reverse.  He died this following day.  For his gallant sacrifice he is a recipient of the Navy Cross.  The WWII Gearing-class destroyer THEODORE E. CHANDLER (DD-717) bore his name, as does our former Kidd-class guided missile destroyer DDG-996.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  11 JAN 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 7 “T-V”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1981, pp. 127-28.

 Morison, Samuel Eliot.  History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol 13  The Liberation of the Philippines: Luzon, Mindinao, the Visayas.  Boston, MA: Little Brown and Co., 1959, pp. xii, 109.

Theodore E. Chandler

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