The final dive of Navy Medal of Honor diver Owen Francis Patrick Hammerberg
Beneath the calm surface of Pearl Harbor, a different kind of battle was fought in the cold, black mud of West Loch. On February 17, 1945, Navy diver Boatswain’s Mate Second Class Owen Francis Patrick Hammerberg crawled under a sunken landing ship to reach two trapped shipmates—and chose to go back into a collapsing tunnel, knowing the risk, until the effort cost him his life.
This week’s Beyond the Call: Medal of Honor Stories feature in Dispatch: U.S. Military History Magazine follows Hammerberg from small-town Michigan to the demanding world of deep sea salvage, then into that narrow, shifting tunnel under an LST where twisted steel, mud, and darkness replaced enemy fire. His final act—shielding another diver with his own body—earned him the Medal of Honor and a permanent place in Navy history.
If you’re interested in the hidden side of the Second World War—the divers, salvors, and specialists whose work rarely made headlines—this story is for you. Read this week’s Beyond the Call issue in Dispatch and then hear the companion episode of the Beyond the Call podcast, developed by Trackpads.com, as we tell the full story of Owen Francis Patrick Hammerberg, the diver who went down for his shipmates.
