Commander Thomas Calloway Latimore was an American naval officer who was captain of the USS Dobbin, and the 24th (22nd unique) Governor of American Samoa.[1] His disappearance in Hawaii, just months before the 7 December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, remains an unsolved mystery.
A career navy man, Latimore was promoted from Ensign to Lieutenant junior grade in 1917.[2] He served as acting Governor of American Samoa from April 10 to April 17, 1934.[1] After his brief office, Latimore, a Naval Intelligence officer, was transferred from Washington, D.C. and given command of the destroyer tender, the USS Dobbin in April 1941. Although a Commander, he was given the command of the ship. A quiet, solitary man he enjoyed hiking in the then undeveloped Aiea Mountain Range that overlooked the harbor ().
Then Yeoman second class Kenneth Isaacs who served on the Dobbin remembers that once Latimore, "came back to the ship, and he had an arm wound which he said he hurt in a fall. For a while he had an arm in a cast."[3] In July the arm had healed and when the cast was removed the Commander went up into the mountains again, never to be seen again. The last time he was seen he was wearing his khaki uniform, an old hat and a walking stick.
When he didn't return search parties of hundreds of sailors and local police scoured the mountains looking for him.[3][4] Trackers with dogs were brought in from Schofield Barracks but no trace of Latimore or his body was ever found. A Navy probe into his disappearance was launched in 1941.[5] His disappearance was never explained and was the subject of much local news coverage and rumor before being overshadowed by the Pearl Harbor attack. On 19 July 1942 he was officially declared dead.[1]
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