Ships
- USS Vireo (AM-52) Lieutenant commander, 31 January 1940 – 18 March 1942 · In command on 7 December 1941 · He signed the ship's report of the attack
Frederick Joseph Ilsemann was commanding officer of the minesweeper Vireo on 7 December 1941. NavSource lists him as a lieutenant commander from 31 January 1940 to 18 March 1942. He signed the ship's action report. A supplementary report dated 25 December 1941 is signed in the transcription F. J. Islemann. The NavSource spelling, Ilsemann, is the one used for his name.
No birth date, home, or family was found in NavSource or in the action report.
No academy class and no earlier ship appear on the command line. He had been in Vireo since the end of January 1940. She left San Francisco for Pearl Harbor on 10 November 1940, which is inside his command, and she was overhauled at Mare Island from 5 September to 7 October 1941 before returning west.
His report says that at about 0755 Vireo was moored inboard at the seaward end of the Coal Dock, bow to seaward, in upkeep, with Turkey, Bobolink, and Rail outboard. About 0800 an explosion was heard, Japanese planes were seen, and general quarters was sounded. At about 0815 a second group flew over toward Hickam Field. The ship fired 22 rounds of 3-inch antiaircraft ammunition and 400 rounds from two .30-caliber machine guns. About 0830, the report says, she brought down one plane flying forward of the bow over the field, from left to right. The bursts of number 2 gun were spotted in its path, and the plane was seen to land near the field. The supplementary report repeats that as the plane shot down by number 2 gun. It also records planes fired on between 0815 and 0930, a torpedo plane seen falling in flames at the hospital about 0805, and a smoking dive bomber that was not seen to land. Those last two are observations, not further claims. The ship did not sortie. The three ships alongside got out about 0930.
There was no damage and no one was killed. Radioman Second Class Aubrey Evan Price, on the dock telephone astern, was wounded by shrapnel in the jaw and neck at 0830 and taken to the hospital. The report says he had returned to duty as of its date. The transcribed heading of that report reads 10 December 1945. The subject is the raid of 7 December 1941, and the supplement is dated 25 December 1941. At 1348 Vireo was ordered to Ten Ten Dock and then to West Loch for ammunition for California. She shifted a lighter of 14-inch powder away from the depot dock, delivered ammunition to Argonne at 1730, and at 2100 went alongside California for salvage. About 2110 she rescued an aviator who fell astern after a plane was shot down, identified him as an Enterprise flier, and reported that the planes then in the air were from Enterprise.
The ship's history keeps her at salvage with California into January 1942 and says she briefly carried ammunition to Enterprise. She had upkeep from 10 to 13 February and made short runs, still in Ilsemann's tour, before he was relieved on 18 March 1942 by Lieutenant James Claude Legg. The Hilo patrols of April and May, and the tow of Yorktown, were after that relief.
No command after 18 March 1942, and no later rank or date of death, was found in the sources used here.