High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Ralph Waldo Christie (August 30, 1893 ? December 19, 1987) was an admiral of the United States Navy. Christie played a pivotal role in the development of torpedo technologies between the wars, and commanded submarine operations out of Brisbane and Perth-Fremantle during World War II . Ralph W. Christie graduated from Annapolis in 1915 and served on a variety of warships beginning with the battleship New Jersey. Aboard the cruiser Montana in 1916, he was trained in torpedo design and implementation. Christie was one of the first members of the Submarine School at New London. He subsequently went on to command the submarines Octopus, R-6, and S-1. In 1923 Christie graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering.