Slade Cutter

Slade Cutter

No. 15
Cutter wins 1934 Army-Navy Game
Date of birth	November 1, 1911
Place of birth	Oswego, Illinois
Date of death	June 9, 2005(2005-06-09) (aged 93)
Place of death	Annapolis, Maryland
Career information
Position(s)	Tackle
Height	6 ft 1 in (185 cm)
Weight	215 lb (98 kg)
College	Navy
High school	East High School, Aurora, IL Severn Prep, Annapolis, MD
Career highlights and awards
Honors	All America
College Football Hall of Fame, 1967

Slade Deville Cutter
Born	November 1, 1911 Oswego, Illinois
Died	June 9, 2005 Annapolis, Maryland
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	United States Navy
Years of service	1935-1965
Rank	Captain
Commands held	USS Seahorse (SS-304) USS Requin (SS-481) USS Neosho (AO-143) USS Northampton (CLC-1)
Battles/wars	World War II U.S. submarine campaign against the Japanese Empire
Awards	Navy Cross (4) Silver Star (2) Bronze Star Medal Presidential Unit Citation

World War II

Slade Deville Cutter (November 1, 1911 – June 9, 2005) was a career U.S. naval officer who was awarded four Navy Crosses and tied for second place for Japanese ships sunk in World War II. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy as an All-American American football player.

Originally intending to become a professional flutist, Cutter instead went to Severn School, at the time a prep school for aspiring Naval Academy applicants, and was noticed in their athletic program. Not only a football star, he was an intercollegiate boxing champion."An all-American football player, he achieved instant fame as a first classman when he won the 1934 Army-Navy game with a first-quarter field goal.

On the basis of his Academy football career, he was later inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Cutter graduated in 1935, served on the battleship USS Idaho (BB-42), where he coached another winning football team."

He entered Submarine School in June 1938. By the Attack on Pearl Harbor, he had advanced to Executive Officer.

Cutter was Executive Officer of USS Pompano (SS-181) under LCDR Lew Parks when she left Pearl Harbor on her first war patrol on 18 December 1941, just 11 days after the Japanese attack. Only two days out of Pearl Harbor, Pompano was sighted by a U.S. patrol plane, which attacked, and called in dive bombers from the nearby USS Enterprise (CV-6). Three additional near-misses ruptured Pompano's fuel tanks and left her trailing an oil slick. Parks shook off his pursuers and pressed on to confirm the presence of Japanese troops on Wake Island. Pompano then continued to the Marshall Islands, where she found a 16,000-ton Japanese transport at Wotje, which was attacked with four torpedoes. Parks remained off Wotje for five more days and eventually attacked a destroyer, but his first two torpedoes detonated early.