Capt. Walter Mazzone
United States Navy
from:San Diego, California
Retired Navy Capt. Walter Mazzone, 96, a decorated submarine officer in World War II and later a key figure in the development of deep-sea diving and submarine rescue procedures during the Cold War, died in August 2014 at his home in San Diego.
As a submariner, Capt. Mazzone was involved in two of the war's most harrowing undersea missions. He endured more than 30 hours of depth-charging by Japanese destroyers in the Makassar Strait off Borneo in 1943 after his ship, the Puffer, attacked a Japanese merchant ship. It was considered the longest such assault in submarine history. In 1944, Capt. Mazzone was torpedo and gunnery officer aboard the submarine Crevalle when it was ordered to retrieve secret documents from a Japanese-held island in the Philippines. Along with getting the documents, the sub was charged with rescuing more than 40 women, children, and missionaries who had been hiding from the Japanese. One of the women was pregnant. Capt. Mazzone is credited with taking a goat aboard the submarine to provide milk for the children, including the newborn.
