The USS Triton is one of 52 World War II U.S. Navy submarines that remain on Eternal Patrol. Commissioned at the Navy shipyard in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in July 1940, she and her 74 officers and crewmen were on patrol off of Wake Island on Pearl Harbor Day December 7th, 1941. Three days later she torpedoed a Japanese destroyer gaining the distinction of being the first Navy submarine to sink a Japanese vessel. By September 1942 Triton had sunk 19 Japanese ships and damaged 7 more - more Japanese tonnage than all other Navy submarines operating out of Pearl Harbor at the time. On board was Tom Ashton of Ridgewood, NJ.
Tom lived at 45 Cathedral Avenue in Nutley with his family while he attended St. Mary's School in Nutley and later St. Mary's High School in Rutherford from which he graduated in 1939. Known to some as Huck, he was active in dramatics, football, basketball and baseball, was class treasurer his junior year and on student council his senior year. He also was assistant scout master of Troop 12 at St. Mary's church.
His family moved to Ridgewood to live at 642 East Glen and he attended St. Peters in Jersey City. He was engaged to Olivia Shaefer of Passaic Park. After working for New Jersey Bell, he enlisted in the Naval Reserve in February 1942 and did his initial training in New London. He later trained in California and Australia, from where his family heard from him for the last time on February 27, 1943 before being assigned to the USS Triton, a Tambor Class submarine.
Ashton was lost aboard the Triton March 15, 1943 in the Caroline Basin, northwest of the Admiralty Islands and southwest of Rabaul. On March 16, 1943 the Triton was ordered to change her area slightly and to return to Brisbane on March 25, 1943. When she failed to make a routine report of position, she was ordered to do so. When no report was received she was reported overdue from patrol and presumed lost on April, 10, 1943, without a doubt sunk by enemy destroyers since the Japanese reported on that day seeing "a great quantity of oil, pieces of wood, corks and manufactured goods bearing the mark 'Made in U.S.A.'." His Shakespearean high school quote seems eerily appropriate: "A scar nobly got is a good livery of honor".
Tom Ashton is listed on the Tablets of the Missing at Manila American Cemetery, Manila. At death he was 21 years old.