Ships
- USS Grebe (AM-43) Lieutenant commander, 16 June 1939 – 1 May 1942 · In command on 7 December 1941 · Naval Academy class of 1920
Ellsworth Dudley McEathron was commanding officer of the minesweeper Grebe on 7 December 1941. NavSource lists him as a lieutenant commander, United States Navy, Naval Academy class of 1920, in command from 16 June 1939 to 1 May 1942.
No birth date, birthplace, or family is on the NavSource command line or in the 2007 Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships entry for Grebe. Those facts are not stated here.
The Naval Academy class of 1920 is what NavSource prints beside his name. It is a class year, not a rank. Nothing in the sources used here describes his duty between that class year and 16 June 1939, when the same list says he took command of Grebe.
He had already been in her for more than two years when the fleet was at Pearl Harbor. Grebe had come out from San Pedro on 3 June 1940 and arrived on 17 June. Two trips back to the mainland interrupted that duty, from 1 August to 9 September 1941 and from 27 September to 13 October 1941, both in company with Bobolink, on passenger and stores runs. The ship's history does not say whether he was aboard for those trips.
On 7 December 1941 she was in yard availability at Pearl Harbor. There is no action report for her on the Navy's list of ships present. The 2007 DANFS text says her 3-inch guns had been dismantled for the overhaul, so she could fight only with rifles and pistols, and that she was credited with shooting down one of three unidentified planes flying low over the Navy Yard. That credit is the history's sentence. It names no witness and no time. The history does not say the commanding officer was aboard, and it does not say he was ashore.
On 24 January 1942 she left for Palmyra with the yard oiler YO-43 in tow and arrived five days later. She was back at Honolulu on 5 February. NavSource ends McEathron's tour on 1 May 1942, when Lieutenant Harold Stanley Bogan relieved him. The same list reclassifies Grebe as the fleet tug AT-134 on 1 June 1942, after he had left. The 2007 DANFS text prints that reclassification on 1 June 1941. The Navy's list of ships present on the morning of the attack still carries her as AM-43.
NavSource records a Silver Star in 1945 and two Legions of Merit with Combat V, in 1944 and 1945, and says he retired as a rear admiral. Those award years are after he left Grebe. NavSource does not say what ship or what action they belong to, and they are not described here as Grebe actions.
No later ship is named in the sources used here. The retirement as a rear admiral is NavSource's statement, without a date.