Medal of Honor: Peter Tomich – World War II – December 7, 1941

Name: Peter Tomich
Rank: Chief Watertender
Organization: U.S. Navy
Unit: USS Utah (AG-16)
Place and Date: Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Territory of Hawaii – 7 December 1941
Entered Service At: New Jersey
Born: June 3, 1893 – Prolog, Austria-Hungary (modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Departed: December 7, 1941 (Killed in Action)
Accredited To: New Jersey

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Summary of Action

When Japanese aircraft struck Pearl Harbor, USS Utah—an old battleship converted to a target ship—was hit by multiple torpedoes and immediately began to capsize. Deep within her engineering plant, Chief Watertender Peter Tomich understood at once that the ship was lost. Yet he also knew that the boilers needed to be secured and the fireroom crews evacuated if anyone below decks was to survive the sudden flooding.

With absolute calm and complete disregard for his own safety, Tomich remained in the rapidly tilting spaces, personally ensuring that every man under his charge made it out. The Utah rolled so quickly that escape routes vanished in seconds, but Tomich held his position until all boilers were shut down and the fireroom personnel had cleared their stations.

Only then—when it was too late for him to escape—did he allow the ship to take him.

His final act of leadership and sacrifice became one of the most enduring stories of the attack: a man who stayed behind so others could live.

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Medal of Honor Citation

For distinguished conduct in the line of his profession, and extraordinary courage and disregard of his own safety, during the attack on the Fleet in Pearl Harbor by the Japanese forces on 7 December 1941. Although realizing that the ship was capsizing as a result of enemy bombing and torpedoing, Tomich remained at his post in the engineering plant of the U.S.S. Utah, until he saw that all boilers were secured and all fireroom personnel had left their stations, and by so doing lost his own life.