EASTERN SEA FRONTIER
WAR DIARY
FEBRUARY 1942
  
     
 
CHAPTER VII
  
 
 
 
THE USS JACOB JONES
  
     
 
        One of the destroyers assigned to temporary duty under Commander, Eastern Sea Frontier was the USS JACOB JONES. She was the second vessel to bear this name. Her predecessor, in the last war , had operated out of the Queenstown base performing duties of search, escort and patrol in the Western Approaches. Her captain during this time, Lieutenant Commander David W. Bagley, was a member of a family whose name has been intimately associated with naval history. His brother, Worth Bagley, had been killed in the Spanish-American War and had given his name to a destroyer. His brother-in-law, Josephus Daniels, was throughout the administration of Woodrow Wilson, the Secretary of the Navy. But the ship has won renown in her own right.
  
     
          Many of the destroyers that were based on Queenstown had names that are still remembered -- the FANNING, the NICHOLSON, the TRIPPE -- but the JACOB JONES is perhaps the most familiar. On December 6, 1917, while returning to her base from escort duty, she was attacked without warning by a German submarine under the command of the remarkable Hans Rose. The exploding torpedo killed many of the crew and did such damage to the ship that she sank in eight minutes. As the vessel disappeared beneath the surface, her depth charges began to explode, killing several more of the survivors who were floating about on life rafts. Those who remained were picked up in a few hours by rescue vessels sent out from Queenstown.  
     
          It was for this ship that the JACOB JONES which reported to Commander,  
     
 
 
 
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  Eastern Sea Frontier in February was named.  
     
          Throughout the month of January, she had been on patrol and escort duty in the North Atlantic, protecting shipping on the sea lanes between America and England. Early in the month, after returning to this coast, she lay over in Boston for a few days before proceeding to New York. Upon arrival here, the ship entered the Navy Yard for brief overhaul and minor repairs.  
     
          On the morning of February 27, her captain, Lieutenant Commander Hugh Black, came to Headquarters, Eastern Sea Frontier to report his ship ready for sea. In conference with Captain Stapler, the nature and extent of the repairs that had been made, and his new duties were discussed. The JACOB JONES was to patrol and search the area between Barnegat and Five Fathom Bank Lighted Buoy. By day she was to keep some forty miles offshore, running along the 100 fathom curve, while at night she was to move inland to search "approximately five miles off the line of lighted buoys" between the north and south extremities of her patrol area. After these matters had been settled and charts for the district reviewed, the Captain returned to his ship.  
     
          At 1130, February 27, the JACOB JONES proceeded to sea. Shortly after her departure, when the destroyer DICKERSON "became available," word was sent to the JACOB JONES from Commander, Eastern Sea Frontier, that two vessels would divide the search and patrol area between them, at the line of 39-10 North latitude. Early in the afternoon, word was received at Headquarters, Eastern Sea Frontier, that the two ships were "proceeding in company in direction of the Delaware Capes." On their way they passed the burning hull of the R. P. RESOR, torpedoes off Sea Girt the day before. The JACOB JONES circled the ship for two hours looking for survivors but could  
     
 
 
 
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  find none. She then returned to her course leaving a Navy tug standing by.  
     
          Three hours later, at 1956, the destroyer notified Eastern Sea Frontier that she was patrolling on a course of 211 at a speed of fifteen knots. Her 2000 position was given as 39-15N; 74-13W. After that, for the rest of the night, the JACOB JONES kept radio silence though a listening watch was maintained, as always, in the radio room.  
     
          Throughout the night the ship, completely darkened without running or navigation lights showing, kept on her southward course. A light wind was blowing but the sea was quite calm. Overhead clouds moved slowly across a hazy sky lit by a full moon. At 0400, the watch was changed. The ship was in "Condition 2" with one-third of the crew standing by. A man was in the crow's nest and several men were on either side of the galley deck house. The ship was not zigzagging. About 0500, as the moon began to fade into the hazy sky, the first streaks of dawn were breaking over the eastern horizon. At this hour, one torpedo broke into the port side of the JACOB JONES with a tremendous explosion, and a second or two later, another plunged into the after part of the ship.  
     
          George Edward Pantall was a fireman third class aboard the JACOB JONES. At 0500, on the morning of February 28, he was on watch in the No. 2 Fireroom, watching the gages. When the first torpedo hit, he was "knocked over against the board we had the other gauges on, and then another one hit, and the floor plates were shaken out of there." In the moment or two during which the engine room watch waited to see what would happen, Pantall picked up a live preserver. The tender looked at the gauges and saw that the pressure  
     
 
 
 
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  had dropped to fifty pounds. Turning to the watch he said, "All right boys, go ahead up through the hatch." So they "went up through the hatch on topside."  
     
          On deck, George Pantell "looked forward of the ship where the first torpedo hit, and I seen what that done and I didn't bother to go aft to see what happened there." The water tender went over to the master valves and secured the fireroom boilers. Then he joined the rest of the crew at the lifeboats.  
     
          Adolph Ring Storm, apprentice seaman, was standing his watch at 0500 on the starboard side of the JACOB JONES on top of the galley deck house. Without warning "there was a tremendous concussion and a flash of flame, and I was knocked down, sir. I could see the flash of flame from where I stood. I was in back of the splinter shield of the gun mount. There was a tremendous flash of flame just forward of me on the starboard side. There was a tremendous concussion. It knocked me down." He stayed down on the deck, dazed but not unconscious, for a minute or two. When he recovered from the shock, he got up and climbed down the ladder to the main deck. Once there, he ran to help the rest of the crew with the lifeboats.  
     
          The two torpedoes landing almost simultaneously on the port side of the JACOB JONES had done almost unbelievable damage. The first one may have exploded the ship's magazine, for it took off everything forward of a point just aft of the bridge, including the chart house, the bridge itself, the officers' and petty officers' quarters. The second, striking aft about forty feet forward of the fantail carried away the after part of the vessel above the keel plates and shafts. About all that was left was a center section.  
     
 
 
 
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          In the clearing light, the crew looked over their ship. To one "everything forward was just a mass of tangled steel all torn away and everything. No bridge at all." Another saw that "Number i stack and the bridge were gone. Number 2 stack was laying over against the galley deck house, and the deck over Number 1 fireroom was rolled up against the galley deck house. The deck over the forward compartments was rolled up against the machine gun nest over the top of the engine room."  
     
          It was obvious that the JACOB JONES would sink. The men -- only about twenty-five of them were able to get out on deck after the explosions -- went immediately to the lifeboats. All the officers had been killed save one who was so badly wounded that he was dazed and "practically incoherent" throughout the time the ship stayed afloat. Under the direction of a rating, "Dusty" Rhodes, the crew set to work to break the boats out of their cradles, only to find they were jammed in the skids. Oil running over the decks and fouling the lines and rigging hindered the work. A life raft was launched with some men, to whom a line was thrown from the deck. This line was rigged to a lifeboat but the men on the raft "couldn't do any good with it.' On deck, they cut the boats free from the cradles but with the slippery footing the the oily lines, it was impossible to get the necessary purchase to get the boats away. So the men turned to the rafts. George Pantall got away on the first one, but returned for some reason, to the ship. He went to the steamfitters' room "and there was a fellow standing at the door. The fellow said to me, 'When the ship starts to go I'll tell you.' It didn't seem long before the man looked in the door and said, 'The ship is going down,' so I left."  
     
 
 
 
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        Four or five rafts were launched from the JACOB JONES before she went down. On most of them, there were only three or four men but one carried fourteen. This raft was very close to the ship when she lifted her stern high in the air and slipped down into the ocean bow first. Seconds later, one of the men saw a sheet of flame rise out of the water and "a little jar" run across the face of the sea. Then a column of water was shot skyward, falling a moment later over those on the raft beneath. The depth charges on the JACOB JONES were going off. The fourteen survivors on the nearby raft took the full force of the concussion. Some were killed. "They just died, one at a time, that's all."
  
 
 
 
        It was toward this raft that George Pantall was swimming when the ship went down. He got there after the depth charges had gone off, to find that "there was no room on it for me, so I hung around on the side of it, and then a wave would come along -- or something -- and wash the fellows overboard, and I finally got on the side of the raft. I laid on the side."
  
 
 
 
        It was about 0600 when the ship sank. Two hours later, at 0810, the life rafts were sighted by First Lieut. L. R. Blackburn, Jr. in an observation plane. A few minutes later the pilot made contact with the USS Eagle 56 which changed its course in the direction indicated by the plane. At 0838, the EAGLE 56 picked up a message dropped from the plane giving the course to the rafts as 120. The ship at 0907 sighted an empty lifeboat. Fifteen minutes later she came alongside a raft on which were three men and four bodies. Some little time was taken in getting the three survivors aboard because the sea was building up before a strong wind. When the men were brought on deck, it was decided, in view of their weakened condition to search
  
     
 
 
 
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immediately for other survivors leaving the bodies on tech raft until later. The raft was taken in tow. For an hour and a half the Eagle boat searched the area. About 0930, she cast off the raft which was beginning to break up. A half-hour later, twelve survivors had been picked up, but tech search went on another hour before the Eagle boat was ordered to proceed to Cape May with the rescued men. Carl Smith, the water tender, died on the way in. For the next two days, tech search continued by plane and ship but no further trace of survivors was found anywhere.
 
 
 
 
        The JACOB JONES was the first man-of-war sunk within the limits of the Frontier by enemy action. How much the element of bad luck entered into her sinking, none can be sure. The normal watch was set and "apparently on the alert." No man saw any evidence of a submarine and no man saw even the wake of the torpedoes before they struck. It is quite possible that the meeting between the destroyer and the U-boat was simply ill fortune and it is also possible that the German picked up a secondary signal from the radio used on the listening watch. Obscure though the causes of the encounter may be, the result is well defined -- the loss, at a critical moment, of an efficient destroyer and a well trained, experienced crew.
 
 
 
 
 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
 

 

  
     
 
 
 
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