Samuel Leroy Cobb

Samuel Leroy Cobb, 43, was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Medal and a ship was named after him, the Samuel L. Cobb, which is still in service in the Pacific as a transport tanker by the Navy.

Cobb served in the U.S. Merchant Marine. He was one of six men killed on April 16, 1942, when his steamer Alcoa Guide was sunk by the German submarine U-123.

USS Broome (DD-210) rescued 27 survivors of the sinking on April 19. The last survivor of the ship was not picked up until May 18.

Though mortally wounded early in the action in which his ship was sunk by enemy submarine, Cobb first endeavored to ram the attacker, and then ran through fire to his cabin to recover the Navy Code and other highly confidential papers which he cast overside in a weighted sack. He later died in a lifeboat from wounds and burns caused by these actions.

USNS Samuel L. Cobb is one of Military Sealift Command's five Government-owned Tankers and is part of the 18 ships in Military Sealift Command's Sealift Program Office.

A longer biography appears in
NUTLEY SONS HONOR ROLL Remembering the Men Who Paid for Our Freedom