JOHN ROBERT BAKER
JULY 12, 1924 – JANUARY 26, 2018
JOHN ROBERT BAKER, 93, died on January 26, 2018, at a nursing home at Soap Lake, WA, after a four-month illness.
John was born on July 12, 1924, in Seattle to Frederick Cannon Baker and Elsie Mae (Browning) Baker. As a small boy, he wandered into Green Lake in Seattle and was pulled to safety by a dog. The event resulted in a feature article in the former Seattle Star. John assumed the role of the oldest male of his family in 1941 when his father was killed in a car accident. In 1943, immediately after graduation from Lincoln High School in Seattle, John joined the United States Navy. He trained as a radioman at the University of Wisconsin before going to Portsmouth, N.H. to train for submarine duty. John began as a Radioman Third Class on the crew of a newly constructed Balao-class submarine, the U.S.S. Atule (SS 403), which was commissioned on June 21, 1944. The Atule crossed the Caribbean Sea and transited the Panama Canal and on to Pearl Harbor. On October 9, 1944, the Atule left Pearl Harbor on the diesel-electric submarine’s first of four war patrols in the South Pacific. On Aug. 15, 1945, the Atule was off the coast of Japan when it received word that Japan had surrendered. John was discharged from the Navy in 1946 as a 22-year-old Radioman Second Class.
- GOONEY BIRDS LIKE THESE INHABITED MIDWAY ISLAND
By JOHN R. BAKER
CHAPTER NINE: THE COVETED SUBMARINE SET OF DOLPHINS
I was one of the “new guys” who had to qualify as soon as possible. Pressure was put on all of us to become qualified on our first fun. This was #1 priority so that we would become as useful as we could be. We were required to study and memorize all sections of our boat. This meant the tanks, the pipes, the hydraulics, the trim system, the torpedoes and how to fire them, the engine rooms, the battery compartments, the armaments, and of course, the diving procedures. So, until dinner time, unless we were at battle stations or otherwise pre-occupied, all of us new swabbies were kept prowling around the ship. We helped one another by quizzing each other. I don’t think anyone lasted two patrols without earning the coveted dolphins. When they were…
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