title: Thomas Withers
text: # Thomas Withers
  
  Thomas Withers, Jr. (28 May 1886 – 25 Jun 1953), was a rear admiral in the United States Navy.
  
  Withers graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1906. He later became qualified in and commanded submarines. At the beginning of World War II in December 1941, he was Commander, Submarine Force, United States Pacific Fleet. There he championed the reliability and efficacy of the Mark 14 torpedo, at a time when submarine commanding officers were discovering that the magnetic detonator for the torpedo were ineffective. Not very long afterward, he was reassigned to Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, in 1942, where he served for the remainder of the war.
  
  Withers retired from the Navy in 1946 as a rear admiral with forty years of naval service. He died in Coronado, California, in 1953 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.
  
  