Douglas Marshall – US Navy

“My dad was a wonderful man’ started Marshall’s daughter, Sandie, for this interview. “He loved my mom, loved all seven of his kids, loved America, loved his state, and when he was teaching, he loved his students. You had better not say anything bad about his students. But sometimes, when he spoke, he didn’t use a ‘filter.’”

Marshall’s parents were immigrants from Newfoundland. His father worked in a naval shipyard, probably the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard located in Kittery, Maine.

Douglas Marshall was born in 1923 in Everett, MA. He moved to Nashua, then Hollis, then moved back to Nashua in 1964 and lived in Nashua’s north end off Concord St. He joined the Navy when he turned 18. This would be 1941, but it is unknown if he joined before or after the Pearl Harbor attack of December 7.

Marshall wanted to be a Naval aviator and qualified for flight school. But, after completing school, Marshall had a “difference of opinion” with Navy brass about how Navy flying doctrine should be conducted. Marshall was re-assigned… to the submarine service. 

Unfortunately, all of Marshall’s military records have been lost. Daughter Sandie explained, “My father never talked much about his Navy service. But he did say that he was aboard the submarine USS Skate, and that they completed seven successful missions, one time, taking a Japanese soldier on board.”

The USS Skate, SS305, was a Balao-class, diesel-electric submarine that served from 1943 to 1946. It was launched on March 4, 1943. On its first patrol in the South Pacific, the Skate rescued several sailors during battles off Wake Island and Midway Island while under enemy fire. On its second mission, it was able to torpedo and sink the Japanese cargo ship, Terukawa Maru. 

On Christmas Day, 1943, the Skate encountered the Japanese battleship Yamato, carrying troops to fight on South Pacific islands. The Yamato and her sister ship, the Musashi, were the biggest warships ever produced by Japan. The Skate fired four torpedoes; three missed, but one connected, striking a “reinforcing belt” of armor around the ship’s hull. Rather than being welded on, the belt was riveted, rivets that popped out when struck by the Skate’s torpedo. It did not sink the ship, but gave the Japanese something to think about. 

(Author’s Note: Designed and built by Japanese ego and hubris, neither ship was very practical. The Yamato and Musashi were used very little during the war because they consumed so much fuel, of which Japan had precious little. They spent the early part of their commissioned lives at anchor serving as luxury offices for high-ranking Japanese officers. So, it was providential that the Skate ran into the Yamato.) 

Skate’s third patrol was in the area of the Caroline Islands in the Pacific, where it torpedoed and sank a Japanese cruiser. On her fourth patrol, the Skate sank an enemy Sampan boat in a surface attack, taking on three prisoners of war. 

On her fifth patrol conducted off the Kuril Islands, the Skate sank the Japanese destroyer Usugumo. Forced to dive deep to escape depth charges, the Skate came under constant attack for two hours. The Skate then sank a Japanese cargo ship taking on two prisoners. The following day, the Skate sank another Japanese cargo vessel.

On her sixth patrol, in September of 1944, the Skate sailed for the Ryukyu Islands on a photographic reconnaissance mission of Okinawa. She also sank a small patrol boat and a cargo ship.

The intrepid sub began her seventh and last patrol on April 11, 1945, headed for the Sea of Japan. On the morning of June 10, 1945, the Skate discovered a Japanese sub, running along the surface, crossing her bow… a perfect set-up for a torpedo shot. Two torpedoes from the Skate sank the Japanese sub. The Skate went on to sink three more cargo ships.

The Skate departed Pearl Harbor on August 5, 1945 for her eighth war patrol; but, while en route to the patrol area, she received word of the Japanese surrender and returned to port, and then set sail for the United States arriving at San Diego, on September 6, 1945, four days after the Japanese instrument of surrender was signed in Tokyo Bay.

So, lacking any other, more specific information, one must assume this is where Navy Seaman Douglas Marshall ended his Navy career. His daughter’s memory was correct; seven successful missions, and there were at least a couple of times that a Japanese soldier or sailor was onboard the sub.

After the war, Marshall worked with a crew to build houses for veterans in the Charlotte Ave. area of Nashua. Then went on to teach woodworking at Nashua High School. Daughter Sandie remembers, “One year, a student built a beautiful bureau for his mother in my dad’s class, but didn’t have a way to get it home. My father put the bureau in his truck, took the bureau and the student home, and helped the student present it to his mother. That’s the kind of guy my father was.”

“He loved kids,” said daughter Sandie. “And he liked to help kids. He would do anything for them. He belonged to the Shriners. Many are familiar with the little cars the Shriners drive in parades while wearing their Fez hats. My father drove the little Shriner ambulance in the parades.”

Daughter Sandie continues, “One time, a bunch of kids in my neighborhood were lighting off firecrackers, and somebody called the police. My father was out in the street with them. When the cops showed up, all the kids quickly scattered. The cops asked who was setting off the fireworks. My father told them he was the one doing it. The cops left, and no arrests were made.”

Daughter Sandie remembered, “Sometimes speaking without a filter got my dad into some hot water with the Nashua school administration, but not enough to stop him from teaching. He loved his students, and his students loved him.”

On May 30, 2018, this author posted the Class of 1970 yearbook photo of then-teacher Douglas Marshall on the Nostalgic Nashua Facebook page, with the caption, “Anyone remember this guy?” Several students noted that they worked with him on a class project, building a house. Former students wrote:

• “Had him for carpentry and still have a bench seat I made.”
• “I had him also tough, but a great guy!”
• “Doug Marshall was a cool guy. Had him for woodworking class.”

Douglas Marshal retired in 1988 and passed away in 1989. The high school on Elm St., where he taught wood-shop is no longer a school – its future is in question. The USS Skate SS305 was decommissioned on December 11, 1946, then towed off the California coast on October 5, 1948, where it was used as a torpedo target and sent to the bottom. It was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on October 21, 1948.

Douglas Marshall’s school and sub are both gone. But with this profile, hopefully, the memory of Navy sailor Douglas Marshall will live on.

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US Service Personnel Profiles
By Gary Ledoux February 1, 2026