Ships
- USS Biloxi (CL-80) Captain from June 1945 · Relieved on 19 May 1946
Allan Douglas Blackledge had Biloxi (CL-80) from June 1945 until 19 May 1946. He took her in the yard after Okinawa and still had her when she was placed in commission in reserve. He retired a captain.
He was born on 30 July 1896 in Culbertson, Nebraska, the son of Lewis H. Blackledge, for twenty years judge of the Tenth Judicial District of Nebraska, and Margaret Lawrence Blackledge. He attended Red Cloud High School and entered the Naval Academy in 1916, appointed from Nebraska. Find a Grave adds that he was born at 4:20 in the morning and weighed 11 3/4 pounds, and that his plebe roommate was Samuel LaHache.
As a midshipman he served in Texas and Virginia on Atlantic patrols in the First World War. He was graduated with the class of 1920 on 6 June 1919, the course cut short by the war, and commissioned ensign from that date. Uboat.net gives the later steps: lieutenant (junior grade) on 7 June 1922, lieutenant on 7 June 1925, lieutenant commander on 22 June 1936, commander on 1 July 1940, and temporary captain on 18 June 1942. The Naval Historical Center uses that same date for captain.
After graduation he served two years in Oklahoma, in Battleship Division 7 of the Atlantic Fleet, then in the destroyers James K. Paulding and Wood. From February 1924 to April 1925 the Naval Historical Center has him in flight training at Pensacola, and then as an instructor in seamanship and flight tactics at the Academy. Find a Grave, from the family history, says the flying ended in a seaplane crash on 18 July 1924 that broke most of the bones on his left side. The instructor, Lieutenant Frederick George Kahn, survived. The memorial says Blackledge spent nearly a year in a naval hospital and did not go back to flying. The Naval Historical Center sketch does not mention the crash. Its next dated line, a return to the Academy in August 1929 and service "until May 1921," cannot be right as printed, and that end date is not used.
He joined Arkansas, flagship of the Scouting Fleet, in August 1926, and Mississippi in June 1929. Ordered to the Asiatic Station, he served in the destroyer the sketch prints as Parrot, at Shanghai and on the Yangtze during the fighting in 1932, and he stayed in the Far East until August 1934. The ship was Parrott (DD-218). Find a Grave says that when he married in 1934 he was a senior lieutenant, executive officer of Parrott, and that the crew gave him engraved binoculars and a carved model of the ship. From September 1934 he was assistant to the officer in charge of public relations in the Navy Department, and he then commanded the naval detachment at Edgewood Arsenal. The sketch prints the place as "the Naval Detachment as Edgewood Arsenal." In May 1937 it sends him as gunnery officer to a ship it prints as Orleans.
In June 1940 he went to the Bureau of Ordnance and was chief of the Guns and Mounts Section when the war began. He received the Legion of Merit for that duty from 7 December 1941 to 26 July 1943. The citation, as the Naval Historical Center prints it, credits him with the production of the guns, mounts, and torpedo tubes needed to arm new ships and rearm old ones. Hall of Valor carries the same award, from the Bureau of Naval Personnel information bulletin of August 1946, and marks the citation as needed.
He fitted out Sumter (APA-52) and took command when she commissioned on 1 September 1943. She worked both oceans. He was then Commander, Transport Division 26. The division's attack transports were in the first assaults in the Marshalls, where the division was the initial attack group of the Northern Attack Force, and at Emirau, where he commanded the first section of the attack group. In April 1944 he became chief of staff and aide to the commander of the Marshalls-Gilberts Area, at Kwajalein, and received a letter of commendation from the commander of the Forward Area.
The Naval Historical Center says he took command of Biloxi in June 1945. NavSource says the same, and relieves him on 19 May 1946. Uboat.net dates the command from 28 June 1945 to 18 May 1946. Find a Grave, copying the shape of an older short DANFS entry, starts him in August 1945 and has the ship bombarding Wake on 18 July, which is before that August and does not match the June 1945 start or the 8 August Wake bombardment in the current DANFS text. The June 1945 date is the one used here. Under him the ship finished her yard period, bombarded Wake on the way west, was at Leyte when the surrender was announced, evacuated prisoners of war from Nagasaki, did occupation duty, and reported for inactivation at Port Angeles. On 18 May 1946 she was placed in commission in reserve. He was relieved the next day. The Naval Historical Center says he "placed the Biloxi in active status in June 1946," which does not match those dates.
He went to the Naval Gun Factory in Washington until April 1948, then commanded the Naval Ordnance Plant at Indianapolis until he was released from active duty pending retirement in June 1949. The Naval Historical Center dates his transfer to the retired list, as a captain, on 30 June 1949. Uboat.net prints 1 July 1950. Find a Grave says he retired as a captain in 1950, became a vice president of Cameron Iron Works in Houston, retired from the firm in 1961, and stayed in Houston. He died of a pulmonary embolism on 11 December 1982 in Plano, Texas. He was cremated in Dallas on 14 December and buried at Arlington National Cemetery on 17 December, section 23, site 22546.
His medals, as the Naval Historical Center lists them, were the Legion of Merit, letters of commendation, the World War I Victory Medal with bronze star, the Yangtze Service Medal, the American Defense Service Medal with bronze star, the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, the World War II Victory Medal, and the Navy Occupation Service Medal with the Asia clasp.