0 Comments
Among the crew was Harrison’s William Meeker, seen here with his mother (inset), before setting sail on an ill-fated voyage. This article ran on Saturday August 28, 2013. I have been working with them in location family members.
http://www.theobserver.com/?p=16473 Remembering USS Juneau August 28th, 2013 By Ron Leir Observer Correspondent KEARNY – For nine months, two Harrison neighbors kept up a steady correspondence while one remained stateside and the other was aboard the USS Juneau, sailing in the Pacific during World War II. The sailor was Seaman 2nd Class William G. Meeker Jr., 18, a product of Holy Cross grammar school and Harrison High School’s Class of 1941, who’d enlisted in the Navy right after graduation. And the civilian he was writing to was Winefride L. Blohm, who lived on the same block as Meeker on Jersey St. in Harrison. “The last letter she got was dated Nov. 6, 1942,” said her son-in-law, Raymond Testa, of Royce, Texas, “which was a week before [his] ship went down.” USS anti-aircraft cruiser Juneau was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine on Friday, Nov. 13, 1942, in the Pacific and quickly sank. Of nearly 700 men aboard, only 10 survived – the worst casualty rate experienced by any large ship in the history of the U.S. Navy, according to a Saturday Evening Post account of the battle. Meeker, who was among the dead, along with 19 other Navy men from Hudson County, and their shipmates will be remembered when Hudson County dedicates the USS Juneau Memorial Center, currently known as Building 77, at 110 S. Hackensack Ave., Kearny, at 2 p.m., on Nov. 13, the 71st anniversary of the Juneau sinking. The observance, which will feature several memorials, displays of photos of the Juneau taken during its launching, the unveiling of a 5-foot-high, 30 pound replica of the Juneau which the county has commissioned from U.S. Merchant Marine Capt. Brad Poulos of SD Model Makers in California, and copies of the Meeker letters. Juneau City Assemblyman Randy Wanamaker is expected to fly in from Alaska as special guest. A Navy color guard and flag officer are also anticipated. Hudson County Freeholder Chairman Anthony L. Romano, chairman of the veterans affairs committee, said: “It’s an honor to be involved with this event, especially as the son of a World War II Navy veteran. The sacrifice of those who served aboard the Juneau is first and foremost why we’re doing this. It’s imperative that veterans of all the different wars be remembered for their sacrifices.” USS Juneau was built at the then-Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co. in South Kearny, and Building 77 – now close to the Hudson County Jail – was then part of the old shipyard. Hudson County officials had intended to do the dedication last year but Hurricane Sandy flooded the building, prompting the county to spend several million dollars to repair it. Plans call for using the building for the storage of vehicles and as an emergency planning center by the Office of Emergency Planning and for the storage of records in climate-controlled vaults by the county Prosecutor’s Office. Copies of the 17 letters that Meeker wrote to his Harrison neighbor between February and November 1942, along with copies of photographs of Meeker and the Juneau, were donated to the Juneau-Douglas City Museum in Alaska by Raymond and Mary Winefride Bloom Testa in honor of Mrs. Testa’s mother who died in 1998. Those letters were read aloud at a public ceremony hosted by the museum Nov. 10, 2012, commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Juneau’s sinking. In a phone interview, Raymond Testa said that the correspondence between his mother-in-law and Meeker might never come to light if Testa’s wife hadn’t discovered a box of her mother’s that contained the 17 letters that her mother had received from the sailor, plus newspaper clippings about the aftermath of the Juneau’s loss. In reading the letters, Testa said it was apparent that while the pair had known each other only as slight acquaintances, “you could see, as time went on, a relationship was growing. … I just got chills reading them.” Sensing that the correspondence had an historic significance, Testa said that he and his wife “wanted to find a permanent home where they could be kept in an archives.” The Alaska-based museum seemed a good choice to the couple, he said. JoAnn Northgrave, who, as chief community organization specialist for Hudson County’s Office of Disability Services and Veterans Affairs, is helping arrange the upcoming ceremonies at Building 77, has read copies of the Meeker letters and she, too, was deeply moved by their tone. “These were letters of desperation,” Northgrave said. “I felt [Meeker] was reaching out [to Blohm] because he needed something. He was hanging on for dear life, waiting for her letters.” In fact, Northgrave noted, “In his last letter to her, he mentioned that he wasn’t a particularly church-going man, but that he was going to receive the sacraments, so the men on the ship must have had a sense something bad was coming.” Indeed, the day before the fatal attack, according to the Saturday Evening Post account by Robert L. Schwartz, the Juneau was among a group of eight destroyers and five cruisers protecting transports unloading word came of an advancing Japanese fleet, causing the American ships to steam away. Hours later, in early morning, moonless darkness, the Americans were disoriented by the sudden appearance of the Japanese force of two battleships, a light cruiser and 15 destroyers, which trained scattered American ships, causing them to fire blindly, at times into their own ships. Within 34 minutes, the Japanese had inflicted heavy damage on 12 of the 13 U.S. ships, including the Juneau: a torpedo hit her bridge and the No. 1 fire room, injuring some sailors, knocking out power to her guns, and leaving the ship 11 feet down by the bow with a two degree list and damaged steering gear. After repairs to the engines, the Juneau crept away, making 10 knots, with five other ships, including the badly wrecked cruiser San Francisco where the admiral, among others, had been killed. But this proved to be only a brief respite. Shortly after 11 a.m., a torpedo aimed at the San Francisco passed under the ship and hit the side of the Juneau, causing a massive explosion and instantly sinking the ship. Initially, it is believed about 150 survived. All but 10 succumbed to the elements, hunger and sharks. Among the dead were the five Sullivan brothers. Three of the 10 reached San Cristobal, an island some 20 miles away, in a rubber raft; five were picked up by a PBY plane; two were found by destroyers. Northgrave expects, from across the U.S., more than 100 relatives of the Hudson County men who served on the Juneau to attend and she credits retired Kearny Police Officer Norman Rutan, a genealogy researcher, with helping locate many. For the past six years, Rutan has worked with the Navy’s “On Eternal Patrol” program, trying to find relatives of American sailors who served on lost submarines. A few years ago, Rutan recalled, Kearny Councilwoman Carol Jean Doyle enlisted his help in locating relatives of five Kearny men who perished on the Juneau. He said he succeeded with three of the five. Then, last year, Northgrave asked him to expand his search to include the entire county. So far, Northgrave and Rutan have come up with a list of 20 names of Hudson County men who served on the ship. They are: Seaman 2nd Class Thomas Kane, Seaman 1st Class George Willoughby, Seaman 2nd Class Wilbur Wood, Seaman 2nd Class Adrian Cahill, Earl Hall and Raymond Phillips, all of Kearny; Seaman 1st Class James Seramba, Seaman 2nd Class William Meeker and Seaman 2nd Class Thomas Beers, all of Harrison; Seaman 2nd Class George Muldoon, Seaman 1st Class Benjamin Lipowski, Seaman 2nd Class John Walter Hermanns, Roy Taylor, Kenneth Russell Satterfield and Walter Zubos, all of Jersey City; Seaman 2nd Class James Henry Mooney, Seaman 2nd Class Stanley Selobyt and Stanley Sepanek, all of Bayonne; Seaman 1st Class William Simpson Davidson Jr. of North Bergen; and Fireman 3rd Class Timothy Dwight Hardwick of Union City. I am looking for any family members of S1c William Simpson Davidson. If anyone has any leads please contact me using the form on the main page.
Hudson County government will soon be dedicating its new Office of Emergency Management headquarters at 110 S. Hackensack Ave. – part of the old Federal Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. shipyard – as the USS Juneau Memorial Center. This was supposed to have happened in December 2012, but damage caused by super storm Sandy in October caused a tremendous amount of damage to the building, postponing the dedication. It now tentatively scheduled for November 13, 2013, the 71st anniversary of the sinking of the Juneau. Many families of crew members form Hudson County NJ will be attending. I have been busy assisting the County of Hudson - Veterans Affairs in locating and inviting them. I'm looking forward to meeting these families who gave so much to our country. On this Memorial Day I would like to pay homage to the crew of the USS Juneau. These young men, who selflessly answered their Country's call, joined the Navy right after the attack on Pearl Harbor, as one of them said, "To Defend Our Country". these young men, paid the ultimate sacrifice to make the Guadalcanal Campaign our first offensive success of World War 2. The free world owes a great deal to these young men of the Juneau, and of many other ships lost during the desperate fighting of 1942. They helped turn the tide. Thank You!
I have been in contact with many crew members families. It is an honor to be able communicate with them. From them I have received several picture of them which I have added to the crew members photo sections. I now have pictures representing 60 different crew members.
This story ran in The Observer, a NJ newspaper. This dedication was to take place in early November but due to Tropical Storm Sandy damage, it has been postponed until this spring or summer.
http://www.theobserver.com/?p=12225 On Nov. 13, 1942, the light cruiser USS Juneau, carrying a crew of 725, was torpedoed and sunk by Japanese subs during the Battle of Guadalcanal in the South Pacific. Few survived the attack. Juneau has a West Hudson legacy: The ship was launched from the Federal Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. on the west bank of the Hackensack River in Kearny (the site is now occupied by Riverside Terminal) on Oct. 25, 1941, and among the ship’s personnel were six Kearny residents and three from Harrison, all of whom perished. Also aboard were the five Sullivan brothers, who died in the attack. Despite a widespread misconception that their deaths prompted Congress to forbid members of the same family to be assigned the same ship in warfare, the U.S. Navy website notes that no such law was ever passed. It is true, however, that hundreds of American warships like Juneau were built at the Kearny shipyard in the run-up to and through World War II and soon, to commemorate the role that Kearny played in supporting the U.S. war effort – and to memorialize the nine West Hudson sailors who gave their lives in that effort – Hudson County government will be dedicating its new Office of Emergency Management headquarters at 110 S. Hackensack Ave. – part of the old shipyard – as the USS Juneau Memorial Center. Kearny Mayor Alberto Santos previewed that plan at the Oct. 9 mayor/council meeting and, two days later, the Hudson County Board of Freeholders voted to dedicate the OEM facility to the USS Juneau. A dedication ceremony is being scheduled for sometime in December, according to county spokesman James Kennelly. The 72,720 square foot structure has been gutted and retrofitted at a cost of about $27 million by Dobco, Inc., of Wayne, as a dual-purpose facility that will house the county’s emergency vehicles along with as archival case records for the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office in climatecontrolled quarters, Kennelly said. The original contract to Dobco was awarded May 28, 2010, for $22,450,000. Subsequent change orders, for additional work including environmental remediation and structural repairs to the original building, drove up the cost. The county has received a grant to cover the expense of the project, Kennelly said. Warehouse 77, as the building was known when it was part of the Federal Shipyard, was acquired as surplus federal property by the county in 1991 for $1 from the U.S. General Services Administration and had been used as a support building for the nearby Hudson County Jail for the storage of items such as beds and clothing, cleaning supplies and tools. Research materials compiled by Emma May Vilardi, Charles Waller and George Rogers indicate that the facility was part of a 160-acre shipyard that had its origins in 1917 as a subsidiary of U.S. Steel Corp. Between 1930 and the late ‘40s, the yard reportedly built more Navy warships than any other yard except Bath Iron Works in Maine. Post-WWII ship construction continued until Federal’s closing in 1949. After that, the facility was adapted as a ship scrap yard until the ‘70s when River Terminal Development began assembling industrial, flex and office properties along the river. During its life as a warship manufacturer, Federal Shipbuilding had its share of labor unrest. In May 1937 civilian workers staged a short-lived strike and on Aug. 6, 1941, thousands of men represented by the International Marine & Ship Workers of America, CIO, walked off their jobs in a dispute over overtime and only returned – 10 days later – after the Navy took over the yard from its private owners – much to the dismay of Kearny officials facing the loss of more than $100,000 a year in tax revenues. It wasn’t until January 1942 that the Navy – under orders from FDR – restored the yard to the owners. On Oct. 13, 1943, 700 employees walked off their jobs in a contractual dispute and returned Oct. 21 – only after the U.S. War Labor Board warned workers they faced possible suspension or being drafted. And in April 1946 workers authorized a strike but the job action was averted within a few weeks. The last Navy destroyer was built in July 1946, closing a chapter in war material production that saw more than 500 vessels launched from the Kearny yard. In April 1948, Federal sold the yard to the Navy for $2,375,000 as the number of employees fell from a wartime peak of 20,000 to fewer than 200. Documents maintained by the Kearny Museum Society list the servicemen from Kearny who died aboard the Juneau as: Adrian Cahill, Earl A. Hall Jr., Thomas Kane Jr., Raymond Phillips, George Willoughby, and Wilbur I. Wood. Hall, a member of the first graduating class at St. Cecilia’s High School, was an amateur athlete and a postal employee. Hall graduated from Washington Jr. High School where he was a member of the swim team. Wood, a compositor at the old Newark News before enlisting, was attached to Juneau’s medical unit. The Harrisonians who were killed were listed as: Andrew E. Welsh, William Meeker Jr. and James Seramba. No street addresses were provided. Rescue ships sent to the area where Juneau sank didn’t realize there were more than 100 sailors still alive, in the water. After eight days in the ocean, only 10 ended up being saved by rescue planes. The rest were done in by the elements and sharks. The last remaining survivor died two years ago, Santos said. “We have asked the Kearny Museum Committee to look for family members who may still be alive to participate in the dedication ceremony,” he said. Everything I have read about the Juneau says she was awarded 4 battle stars. Just what were these stars for? After some research I think I have found the answer. Below I have listed the battles she participated in, along the dates of the battle, that were eligible for battle stars:
CAPTURE AND DEFENSE OF GUADALCANAL (10 Aug. '42-8 Feb. '43) BUIN-FAISI-TONOLAI RAID (5 Oct. 1942) SANTA CRUZ ISLANDS (26 Oct. 1942) GUADALCANAL (Third Savo) (12-15 Nov. 1942) I added a page devoted to Lt Commander Blue. I have added picture which were furnished by his family and have never been seen publicly before. Cmdr Blue held many important positions in the US Navy. Cmdr Blues' daughter, Eleanor Stuart Blue, was born just prior to the sinking of the USS Juneau. Years later, the senior surviving officer Lt O'Neil told the family that Cmdr Blue did receive news of his daughters birth prior the final sailing, as he was passing out cigars to the rest of the officers aboard the Juneau. Page can be found here.
I believe this to be a complete list, but I am still researching this.
Ships named for Members of the USS Juneau (CL-52) USS Juneau (CL-119) USS Juneau (LPD-10) USS Blue (DD-744) USS Lyman K. Swenson (DD-729) USS The Sullivans (DD-537) USS The Sullivans (DDG-68) USS Oberrender (DE-344) USS William M. Hobby (APD-95) |
AuthorI am a person who believes that the Juneau and her crew should never be forgotten. Archives
July 2022
Categories |