Thomas C. Latimore

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Commander Thomas C Latimore's ship the USS Dobbin on open seas

Commander Thomas C. Latimore was a American naval officer who was captain of the USS Dobbin. His disapperance just months before the 7 Dec 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor remains an unsolved mystery.

1 A quiet man
2 Rumors in the Navy
3 Sources
4 Maps of the Aiea Mountain Range

[edit] A quiet man

Latimore, a Naval Intelligence officer, was transfered from Washington, D.C. and given command of the destroyer tender, the USS Dobbin in April of 1941. Although a Commander, he was given the command of the ship. A quiet, solitary man he enjoyed hiking in the then undeveloped Aiea Mountain Range that overlooked the harbor.

Then Yeoman second class Kenneth Isaacs who served on the Dobbin remembers that once Latimore, "came back to the ship, and he had an arm wound which he said he hurt in a fall. For a while he had an arm in a cast."^[1] In July the arm had healed and when the cast removed the Commander went up into the mountains again, never to be seen again. The last time he was seen he was wearing his khaki uniform, an old hat and a walking stick.

When he didn't return search parties of hundreds of sailors and local police scoured the mountains looking for him^[1]. Trackers with dogs were brought in from Schofield Barracks but no trace of Latimore or his body was ever found. His disapperance was never explained and was the subject of much local news coverage and rumor before being overshadowed by the Pearl Harbor attack. On 19 July 1942 he was officially declared dead.

[edit] Rumors in the Navy

In the Navy there were rumors that he might have been abducted and killed by the local Japanese spy ring either because he stumbled upon some sort of Fleet Plotting in the hills or he was specifically targeted because of his Intelligence background.^[1]
Others who believe that United States President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had set up the Pearl Harbor attack in order to galvanize the American public into war, believe that Latimore may have had forewarning of the attack from his Naval Intelligence contacts and decided to disappear before the Japanese strike.^[1]

[edit] Sources

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Robert S. La Forte and Ronald E. Marcello [1992-03-01]. "Maps", Remembering Pearl Harbor: Eyewitness Accounts by U.S. Military Men and Women (Paperback) (in English), New York: Ballantine Books, 314. ISBN-10: 0345373804 ISBN-13: 978-0345373809.