WASHINGTON — Retired Rear Adm. Maurice “Mike” Rindskopf, who became the youngest commander of a U.S. submarine during World War II and helped his vessel achieve one of the best fighting records of the war, died July 27 of prostate cancer at his home in Annapolis, Md. He was 93.

In June 1944, Rindskopf was a 26-year-old lieutenant commander aboard the USS Drum, a state-of-the-art submarine fighting in the Pacific. The captain developed gallstones.

“I was given two choices,” Rindskopf wrote in an unpublished autobiography. “To take command, or to break in yet another skipper. The decision was easy, and I became the first in the (U.S. Naval Academy) class of 1938 to command a fleet boat on patrol.”

During his 11 patrols aboard the Drum, the last two of which he led, Rindskopf helped sink at least 15 enemy ships and damage 11 more. With that record, the Drum ranked eighth among U.S. submarines in terms of tonnage sank, according to James Scott, author of a forthcoming book about submarine warfare in the Pacific.

Rindskopf received the Navy Cross for his “extraordinary heroism” as commanding officer of the 11th patrol, which took place in Japanese-controlled waters during the fall of 1944. He “launched five well-planned and brilliantly executed torpedo attacks” that sank four ships totaling more than 25,000 tons and damaged two others.

“By his expert seamanship,” the citation reads, “Commander Rindskopf avoided severe enemy countermeasures and brought his ship safe to port.”

He had joined the crew of the Drum less than three years earlier as a junior officer, shortly before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, and had distinguished himself for his skill in gunnery.