Gustaf A. Sundquist

Cut undersea communication cables while under enemy gunfire.

Gustaf Adolf Sundquist was born at Irsta, Sweden, on 4 June 1879. One of nine children, he emigrated to the United States as a young man and enlisted in the Navy in July 1897. During the Spanish-American War he served as an ordinary seaman in USS Nashville.

On 11 May 1898, boats from Nashville and Marblehead went close to the shore at Cienfuegos, Cuba, to cut submarine communications cables. The crews worked within range of Spanish rifle and artillery fire. The operation severed two of the three cables found, but casualties forced the boats to withdraw before the third could be cut. Sundquist was among the men whose conduct in the boats earned the Medal of Honor.

He left the Navy in September 1900. In 1905 he married Matilda Pearson in Brooklyn; the couple had five children. They moved to Cleveland in 1915, where he worked in structural ironwork.

During the First World War Sundquist returned to naval service. Enlisting in the Naval Reserve in May 1918 as a chief special mechanic, he went to France and served at the naval air station at Croix d'Hins. On 25 August 1918 he drowned while swimming. His body was not recovered. His name appears on the Tablets of the Missing at Brookwood American Cemetery, and Cleveland's Liberty Row commemorates his wartime death.

Official Medal of Honor citation

On board the U.S.S. Nashville during the operation of cutting the cable leading from Cienfuegos, Cuba, 11 May 1898. Facing the heavy fire of the enemy, Sundquist displayed extraordinary bravery and coolness throughout this action.