George Levick Street III (July 27, 1913 – February 26, 2000) was a submariner in the United States Navy. He received the Medal of Honor during World War II.
Early life and career
Street was born in Richmond, Virginia. He joined the Naval Reserve in 1931 and was selected for an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1933; he graduated in 1937.
After serving in the gunnery and communications departments of and the navigation and engineering departments of , he volunteered for the Submarine School at New London, Connecticut. After graduating, Street served three years in , from her commissioning on April 14, 1941, until February 27, 1944. Street served in this fleet submarine, first as Gunnery and Torpedo Officer, then as First Lieutenant and Torpedo Data Computer Operator and finally as Executive Officer and Navigator.
World War II
While serving in Gar, he made nine war patrols. Street received two Silver Stars for his "for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action against the enemy while serving as Assistant Approach Officer aboard the ... U.S.S. GAR (SS-206)" on Gar's first and tenth patrols.
On July 6, 1944, LCDR Street reported to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard to fit out the , his first command. Commissioning the ship in November, the captain took his new boat for shakedown training in Long Island Sound and further training in waters off Panama and Hawaii. The ship's first war patrol, commencing March 3, 1945, was southwest of Kyūshū, Japan's southernmost island. By that point in the war, most of Japan's merchant fleet had already been sunk, but Street went into shallow water close to shore and found several ships.
Searching westward of Kyushu, Tirante patrolled the approaches to Nagasaki. She had good hunting. She sank the 703-ton tanker Fuji Maru on 25 March and followed this success with the sinking of the 1,218-ton freighter Nase Maru three days later. After the latter attack, Japanese escorts kept Tirante down for seven hours, before she slipped away from her hunters, unscathed.
On 31 March, Tirante shelled and sank a 70-ton lugger with 5-inch and 40-millimeter gunfire and, on 1 April, missed an LST-type vessel with a spread of three torpedoes. The submarine soon shifted to waters off the south coast of Korea, near the Strait of Tsushima. At twilight on 6 April, she battle-surfaced and captured a small Japanese fishing vessel and took its three crewmen prisoner before sinking the prize.
The following day, Tirante torpedoed a 2,800-ton cargo freighter loaded with a deck cargo of oil drums. The submarine surfaced, looked over the debris, and directed nearby Korean fishing craft to pick up two survivors who were clinging to pieces of wreckage. Nevertheless, although observers on the submarine reported witnessing the maru's sinking, post-war examination of Japanese records failed to confirm the "kill."
Having broken the Japanese codes, American naval intelligence men were able to anticipate Japanese movements. One intercepted enemy message told of an important convoy steaming toward Tirante's area. In response to this information, the submarine laid an ambush on 9 April. Picking out two targets, she fired three torpedoes at each. One spread missed, but the other struck the 5,500-ton transport Nikko Maru— carrying homeward-bound Japanese soldiers and sailors from Shanghai. As the important auxiliary slipped beneath the waves, enemy escorts leapt to the offensive. To ward off the counterattack, Tirante fired a "cutie" (a small anti-escort homing torpedo) at one of the escorts and heard subsequent "breaking-up noises." But again, post-war accounting failed to confirm the sinking.
On 15 April 1945, following a report from Naval Intelligence, Street took into Cheju harbor — on the surface, to avoid shoals and minefields. Using six of his seven remaining torpedoes, he sank a freighter and two of its escorts. For this action, was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation (US), Street received the Medal of Honor, and his executive officer, LT Edward L. Beach Jr., received the Navy Cross.
Beginning her second patrol, Tirante departed from Midway on 20 May 1945 as command ship of the nine-boat "wolfpack" dubbed "Street's Sweepers." They patrolled the Yellow and East China Seas on the lookout for enemy targets—by then dwindling in number. Tirante located a four-ship convoy on 11 June, in the first patrol's hunting grounds off Nagasaki. She evaded the three escorts long enough to get a shot at the lone merchantman, an 800-ton cargo freighter, and pressed home a successful attack. Post-war Japanese records, though, do not confirm a "kill."
