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Casualty Info
Home Town Mobile County
Last Address USS Jacob Jones in the Atlantic.
Remembered at the Brookwood American Military Cemetery in England on the Tablets of the Missing, & with a cenotaph at Arlington National Cemetery (section 15A, site 25 SS).
Casualty Date Dec 06, 1917
Cause KIA-Killed in Action
Reason Lost At Sea-Unrecovered
Location North Atlantic Ocean
Conflict World War I
Location of Interment Buried at Sea, North Atlantic Ocean
Wall/Plot Coordinates Lost at Sea with the USS Jacob Jones.
Description USS Jacob Jones (Destroyer No. 61/DD-61) was a Tucker-class destroyer built for the United States Navy prior to the American entry into World War I. The ship was the first U.S. Navy vessel named in honor of Jacob Jones.
Jacob Jones was laid down by the New York Shipbuilding of Camden, New Jersey, in August 1914 and launched in May of the following year. The ship was a little more than 315 feet (96 m) in length, just over 30 feet (9.1 m) abeam, and had a standard displacement of 1,090 long tons (1,110 t). She was armed with four 4-inch (10 cm) guns and had eight 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes. Jacob Jones was powered by a pair of steam turbines that propelled her at up to 30 knots (56 km/h).
After her February 1916 commissioning, Jacob Jones conducted patrols off the New England coast. After the United States entered World War I in April 1917, Jacob Jones was sent overseas. Patrolling the Irish Sea out of Queenstown, Ireland, Jacob Jones rescued the survivors of several ships, picking up over 300 from the sunken Armed merchant cruiser Orama.
On 6 December, Jacob Jones was steaming independently from Brest, France, for Queenstown, when she was torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-53 with the loss of 66 men, becoming the first United States destroyer sunk by enemy action. Jacob Jones sank in eight minutes without issuing a distress call; the German submarine commander, Kapitänleutnant Hans Rose, after taking two badly injured Jacob Jones crewmen aboard his submarine, radioed the U.S. base at Queenstown with the coordinates for the survivors. The Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Dedham, Massachusetts is named for the ship.
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
December / 1917
To Month/Year
December / 1917
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
Memories Throughout the summer, the destroyer escorted supply-laden convoys and continued rescue operations in submarine-infested waters. On 19 October she picked up 305 survivors of torpedoed British cruiser Orama.
After special escort duty between Ireland and France, she departed Brest, France, on 6 December on her return run to Queenstown. At 16:21, as she steamed independently in the vicinity of the Isles of Scilly, her watch sighted a torpedo wake about a thousand yards distant. Although the destroyer maneuvered to escape, the high-speed torpedo struck her starboard side, rupturing her fuel oil tank. The crew worked courageously to save the ship; but as the stern sank, her depth charges exploded. Realizing the situation hopeless, Commander David W. Bagley reluctantly ordered the ship abandoned. Eight minutes after being torpedoed, Jacob Jones sank with 64 men still on board.
The 38 survivors huddled together on rafts and boats in frigid Atlantic waters off the southwest coast of England. Two of her crew were taken prisoner by attacking submarine U-53 commanded by Kapitan Hans Rose. In a humanitarian gesture rare in modern war, Rose radioed the American base at Queenstown the approximate location and drift of the survivors. Throughout the night of 6 December to 7, the British sloop-of-war Camellia and British liner Catalina conducted rescue operations. By 08:30 the following morning HMS Insolent had picked up the last survivors of Jacob Jones.
