David Fowler Green
Rank: Yeoman, First Class
Branch: U.S. Navy
Serial: 06513591
Unit: USS Mississinewa (AO-59)
Entered the service from: New Jersey
Died:
Memorialized at: Tablets of the Missing, Manila American Cemetery, Manila, Philippines
Awards: Purple Heart
Introduction
Yeoman First Class David Green, 30, of 27 South Hood Avenue, Audubon NJ, was killed in action when the ship he was serving on, the oil tanker USS Mississinewa (AO-59), was sunk after being torpedoed by a Kaiten, an Imperial Japanese Navy manned suicide torpedo with a 3,418 lb. warhead at Ulithi, Caroline Islands, on November 20, 1944. A graduate of Paulsboro (NJ) High School and Camden (NJ) Commercial College, he had worked for the Socony-Vacuum Oil Company prior to entering the armed forces in January of 1943.
The USS Mississinewa was a T3-S2-A3 Auxiliary Oiler, commissioned on May 18, 1944. David Green was part of the original crew aboard that day. The role of the USS Mississinewa was to refuel ships, while underway, in the South Pacific during WWII. She, along with the other Auxiliary Oilers, played a crucial role in keeping combat vessels supplied with fuel.
When the USS Mississinewa was struck by the Kaiten, she became totally engulfed in flames and subsequently sank with a loss of 63 U.S. Sailors and one Japanese Kaiten pilot.