Eugene Joseph Dettlaff

Eugene Joseph Dettlaff enlisted into the US Navy Reserve on July 10, 1940, in Milwaukee, Wis. He underwent training for about a month at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, aboard the USS Wyoming (AG-17). He was later commissioned as an officer, attaining the rank of lieutenant (junior grade) and serving in the Navy Armed Guard. In 1942, Dettlaff was serving aboard the USAT Coamo, a former passenger ship requisitioned for war use by the War Shipping Administration and retrofitted to carry troops. He was part of the ship's detachment of armed guards. On Dec. 2, 1942, the Coamo was sighted and stalked by the German submarine U-604, which fired a torpedo, striking the Coamo under the ship's bridge. All hands aboard the ship were lost. Lieutenant (JG) Eugene Dettlaff's remains have never been recovered, and he is still considered missing in action to this day. He is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial in Coton, England.