Ships
- USS Thorn (DD-647) Captain, 31 May 1944 – 6 May 1946
Frederick Henry Schneider, Jr., was born in Wausau, Wisconsin, on 21 May 1914. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1937 and was commissioned in the Navy. By June 1940 he was a lieutenant (junior grade). In July 1943 he was advanced to temporary lieutenant commander.
On 31 May 1944 he relieved Edward Brumby in command of the destroyer Thorn (DD-647). The Gleaves-class ship was then finishing an overhaul at the New York Navy Yard after earlier wartime service. Schneider took her back to the Pacific that summer. In August Thorn helped escort the battleship Mississippi toward Pearl Harbor and later accompanied the battleship Maryland as far as Tulagi. In September she joined the landings at Palau.
In October 1944 Thorn entered the Leyte campaign with the fire-support and bombardment group. From 19 to 25 October Schneider held her to screening duty in waters under mortar fire and air attack. On the night of 25 October, in the Battle of Surigao Strait, the destroyer engaged major ships of the Japanese force coming up from the south toward Leyte Gulf. Thorn finished that action fit for further service and had a material part in the defeat of the force. For his leadership across those days he received the Silver Star.
Schneider kept Thorn with the replenishment groups that fueled and supplied the fleet through the rest of the Philippines fighting. She was off Mindoro in December 1944 and with the Luzon operation from the end of December into late January 1945. On 19 February 1945 she was off Iwo Jima. From March into June she served through the Okinawa campaign, again with the service forces that kept the combatant ships at sea. On 20 July 1945 he was promoted to temporary commander. In the heat of that cruise he was photographed on the starboard side of the bridge in a sun helmet.
Thorn was still in the western Pacific when the fighting ended on 15 August 1945. She used the fleet anchorage at Ulithi and later lay at Yokosuka alongside the Japanese battleship Nagato. On the voyage home the ship crossed the equator in the Indian Ocean on 8 November 1945, and the crew marked the crossing in the old way. Schneider remained commanding officer until 6 May 1946, the day Thorn was decommissioned.
His later commands included the destroyer Willis A. Lee, which he took in October 1954, and the heavy cruiser Saint Paul, which he took in October 1960 after promotion to captain. He was promoted to vice admiral on 31 July 1970 and retired in that rank. Besides the Silver Star, his decorations included the Navy Distinguished Service Medal and the Legion of Merit. He died on 17 December 1998 and was buried at the Naval Academy Cemetery in Annapolis.