This is the tale of two unlucky destroyers named for an unlucky commodore, and the destroyer that avenged one of them. Perhaps the name, Jacob Jones, was cursed.  Jacob Jones was born in Delaware, but was an orphan by the age of four. He eventually became a doctor, found love and married but his wife…

The Japanese attack on our Pacific Fleet on Dec. 7, 1941, seemed devastating. Of the eight battleships we had in Pearl Harbor that day, all of them were sunk or heavily damaged. Three cruisers were severely damaged. Three destroyers were put out of commission. Nearly 200 aircraft were destroyed. More than 2,400 Americans lost their…

We all know the U.S. entered World War II on December 7, 1941 when the Japanese attacked our Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. Why didn’t we go to war when Germany attacked three of our destroyers weeks and months before Pearl Harbor? On September 4, 1941, the USS Greer (DD-145), (near left) a WW-I era…

Within a few minutes after I finished a radio interview on a Colorado station, I got a note on my website from a Charles Frazier. Mr. Frazier, a Navy veteran himself, wanted to tell me the story of a great uncle he never met, Delbert Benton Connor. Delbert was one of three sons of the…

For nearly 80 years we’ve heard: “Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date that will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” Welllllll…….that’s not quite true. More than an hour and a half before the first wave of Japanese bomber…

May 9, 1941, may have been the turning point of World War II – a full seven months before the United States entered the war. If so, the free world can thank the crews of three British warships;  a brand new, but tiny corvette, a 21-year-old former American Clemson class destroyer, and a smallish 11-year-old…