USS Jacob Jones (DD-61) - United States Navy Career

United States Navy Career

USS Jacob Jones was commissioned into the United States Navy on 10 February 1916 under the command of Lieutenant Commander William S. Pye. Following her commissioning, Jacob Jones conducted training exercises off the New England coast, and then entered the Philadelphia Navy Yard for repairs. Upon the United States' entry into World War I on 6 April 1917, Jacob Jones patrolled off the coast of Virginia. She sailed from Boston for Europe on 7 May with a group of destroyers that included Cassin, and arrived at Queenstown, Ireland, on 17 May.

Jacob Jones' duties at Queenstown involved patrolling and escorting convoys in the Irish Sea and making occasional rescues of survivors of sunken ships. On 8 July, Valetta was torpedoed by German submarine U-87 some 120 nautical miles (220 km) west of Fastnet Rock; Jacob Jones arrived on the scene and picked up 44 survivors of the British steamship. While escorting British steamship Dafila two weeks later, lookouts on Jacob Jones sighted a periscope, but before the destroyer could make an attack on the submarine, U-45 torpedoed and sank the steamship. Jacob Jones was able to take on 26 of Dafila's 28-member crew after the ship went down.

On 19 October, the British Armed merchant cruiser Orama and ten destroyers, including Jacob Jones, were escorting an eastbound convoy of twenty steamers, when German submarine U-62 surfaced in the midst of the group. The submarine launched its only remaining torpedo at Orama, sinking that vessel. While sister ship Conyngham saw and depth charged U-62 (to no avail), Jacob Jones turned her attentions to rescuing Orama's survivors, gathering 309.

Read more about this topic:  USS Jacob Jones (DD-61)

Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, navy and/or career:

    “The House of Lords, architecturally, is a magnificent room, and the dignity, quiet, and repose of the scene made me unwillingly acknowledge that the Senate of the United States might possibly improve its manners. Perhaps in our desire for simplicity, absence of title, or badge of office we may have thrown over too much.”
    —M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)

    “Printer, philosopher, scientist, author and patriot, impeccable husband and citizen, why isn’t he an archetype? Pioneers, Oh Pioneers! Benjamin was one of the greatest pioneers of the United States. Yet we just can’t do with him. What’s wrong with him then? Or what’s wrong with us?”
    —D.H. (David Herbert)

    “I think those Southern writers [William Faulkner, Carson McCullers] have analyzed very carefully the buildup in the South of a special consciousness brought about by the self- condemnation resulting from slavery, the humiliation following the War Between the States and the hope, sometimes expressed timidly, for redemption.”
    —Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)

    “I wish to reiterate all the reasons which [my predecessor] has presented in favor of the policy of maintaining a strong navy as the best conservator of our peace with other nations and the best means of securing respect for the assertion of our rights of the defense of our interests, and the exercise of our influence in international matters.”
    —William Howard Taft (1857–1930)

    “A black boxer’s career is the perfect metaphor for the career of a black male. Every day is like being in the gym, sparring with impersonal opponents as one faces the rudeness and hostility that a black male must confront in the United States, where he is the object of both fear and fascination.”
    —Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)