Last week I learned the sad news that Captain C.A.”Pete” Tzomes, U.S. Navy Ret. had died at his home in Moline, Illinois, from his good friend Lucille Evans. I had gotten to know Pete after writing an article about him for “Webb Weekly” back in June of 2014. I had maintained a fairly close contact with him via phone and email since then. I found him to be a man of class, dignity and he had a boundless love for the country that he served with pride and distinction. Much of the information of this article of tribute to Pete comes from that 2014 article.

Chancellor Alonso “Pete Tzomes did not like to be told that he can’t or is incapable of doing something. It only makes him more determined and tenacious to do what he was told he can’t do.

It is the grit and highly developed sense of purpose that would help him overcome various hurdles\that would make him the first African-American to command a nuclear submarine in the United States Navy.

Tzomes (pronounced Toms) was born in Williamsport in 1944, a son of James Chancellor Tzomes and Charlotte Eudora Hill Tzomes.

The Williamsport that Pete Tzomes grew up in was a very different place for African-Americans than it is now. There was an underlying subtle and not-so-subtle racism that Williamsport’s African-Americans had to endure when Pete was growing up here in the late 40s, 1950s and early 1960s.

“My mom was fond of saying that the ‘north conceals what the south reveals,” Pete told me in 2014.”In the south you knew right where you stood. Jim Crow was there for all to see. In the north they tried to make it more hidden.”

He recalled that there were just two neighborhoods that Williamsport’s blacks were concentrated in. Realtors and property owners would not sell to blacks outside of those two neighborhoods.

“I remember very well when P.D. Mitchell only wanted to move two blocks from where he lived on Park Avenue up to High Street. It caused a great uproar,” Tzomes said. “Mr. Mitchell got death threats and rocks and bricks thrown through his windows.”

Accommodations were segregated in Williamsport at the time. No hotel would take blacks in. As a result Pete’s mother and a woman across the street, Mrs. Mellix opened up tourist homes at their house for blacks who came to town to stay. When the famous jazz singing group the “Ink Spots” came to town the Lycoming Hotel, now the Genetti, would not allow them to stay there, so stayed at the two tourist homes.

“The schools were not segregated and you interacted and played with white kids,” Pete said. “But many times when the parents of some these children heard they were playing with you and hanging out with you they told their children that they did not want their kids playing with you anymore because you were black.”

He loved baseball and recalled serving as a ballboy for the 1959 Williamsport. He then recalled that the next year he was not asked to come back as ballboy. Roy Clunk, longtime business manager for the team, told him, “If I had known you were black, I would not have asked you to be a ballboy.’ Tzomes was a light-skinned black. Interestingly, my last conversation with Pete dealt with those 1959 Grays. I had emailed him a copy of an article I had written about the team for this year’s Williamsport Crosscutters program. He told me he enjoyed it a lot and it brought back a lot of good memories.

Early on Pete developed an interest in attending the U.S. Naval Academy.

Pete’s desire to attend the U.S. Naval Academy was prompted by an appearance by an Annapolis Midshipman, while he was attending what was then Stevens Junior High School.

“The Midshipmen brought this film about Annapolis to show called ‘Ring of Valor’ and I determined that I wanted to go the Naval Academy and earn one of those rings,” Pete stated “Also, at the same time, there was a popular show on television, called ‘Men of Annapolis’, that I watched religiously and that further fired my interest in going to Annapolis.”

It was at this point that a guidance counselor at Stevens tried to throw an obstacle in Pete’s quest.

“I went to see this counselor about getting information about how to prepare and apply to go to the Naval Academy,” Pete remembered. “That counselor told me, ‘you shouldn’t try to go there they don’t have Negroes at the Naval Academy. That counselor was unaware that the first black graduated from there 1947. Him telling me that I couldn’t go there just made me mad and more determined than ever to go there.”

Pete started the application process when he was a junior in high school. He landed one of the alternate appointments but there were three other candidates ahead of him. Following graduation from Williamsport High School, he bided his time by attending the State University of New York at Oneonta. He made the Dean’s List and by doing so, showed even more strongly that he had the academic ability to excel at Annapolis. Also a couple of the other candidates ahead of him fell by the wayside and Tzomes was appointed to the Naval Academy in the spring of 1963, to begin his Plebe or freshman year in the fall.

He did well at Annapolis and graduated from there in 1967. He applied for the Marine Corp fighter pilot program but could not meet the height requirements so he applied for and was accepted in the Navy’s Nuclear Power Program, which led to assignment to work on nuclear submarines.

He served on several nuclear subs, including the U.S.S. Cavalla, where he served as executive officer under fellow Williamsporter, Captain Bill Rohm.

“Pete was great to work with on the Cavalla. Neither of us knew we were from Williamsport until we started talking,” Rohm said. “He taught me a lot of things that I did not know about Williamsport. He told me the problems that blacks had in Williamsport. I had a pretty sheltered life and had no idea these things were going on. It blew my mind. I grew up only a few blocks from where Pete lived. Pete and I both like good cigars a lot and I can remember our wardroom always being filled with blue haze of cigar smoke…”

Pete’s leadership abilities and his outstanding record on his previous assignments led the Navy to name him commanding officer of the nuclear submarine, the U.S.S. Houston in 1983, thus making him the first African-American to command a nuclear submarine in the United States Navy.

“I had a great crew on the Houston and it was a privilege to serve as their commanding officer,” Pete said.

His milestone yielded much attention, including a flattering feature story on him in the December 1985 issue of “Ebony” magazine.

After ending his term of service on the Houston in 1986 he served in several high level assignments including Force Operations Officer on the staff of Commander Submarine Forces U.S. Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and oversaw the operations of all submarines in the Pacific theater. In 1988, Tzomes was appointed as the Director of the Equal Opportunity Division in the Bureau of Naval Personnel and as the advisor to the Chief of Naval Personnel on equal opportunity issues; and, in 1990, he became Commanding Officer of Recruit Training Command Great Lakes (boot camp). Pete then served as Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations and Inspector General before he retired from the Navy in 1994.

After retiring from the Navy he was employed as the utility manager of the Exelon Corporation, before retiring from there in 2012.

It has been said that success can be the best revenge, but Pete Tzomes never sought revenge for some of the various indignities he had to endure, all he wanted was respect and he certainly earned that through his great abilities, his determination and his leadership skills.

May you have eternal peace in your rest Pete. It might be appropriate to close with some words from the Burial at Sea.

“Unto Almighty God we commend the soul of our brother departed (Pete), and we commit his body to the deep; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection unto eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; at whose coming in glorious majesty to judge the world, the sea shall give up her dead; and the corruptible bodies of those who sleep in him shall be changed, and made like unto his glorious body; according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself.”