WINCHESTER, Ky. — Researchers at a Hawaii submarine museum have located a photograph they were searching for of a Winchester man who died when his submarine sank during World War II.
WINCHESTER, Ky. — Researchers at a Hawaii submarine museum have located a photograph they were searching for of a Winchester man who died when his submarine sank during World War II.
Jim Converse is a volunteer researcher with the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum in Honolulu and the website OnEternalPatrol.com.
He told The Winchester Sun last week that Oliver Prewitt Tipton was the only member of the USS Dorado’s 77-man crew for whom a photograph had not been found. After calling local historians, librarians and officials, Converse located a copy of Tipton’s death notice in the Lexington Leader.
Converse said the notice appeared in Lexington because Tipton’s wife was living there with her father while Tipton was serving.
Tipton was a Winchester native who enlisted in the Navy in 1942 and was an electrician’s mate third class when the Dorado went down. He died Oct. 12, 1943, when the USS Dorado went down south of Haiti while on transit to the Pacific. All 77 men on board were killed, and military officials never determined why the submarine sank.
The photo that accompanied Tipton’s death notice has been added to a memorial page on the museum’s website. It pays tribute to the more than 3,600 men who died in submarines in World War II. The museum is trying to gather photos and biographical information on all of the men, and the website says the job is about 80 percent complete.