Ships
- USS Paul Jones (DD-230) Captain, 6 November 1943 to 4 October 1944
- USS Stoddard (DD-566) Captain from 17 December 1944
Commander George Paul Unmacht of the United States Navy commanded two destroyers in the Pacific during the Second World War. He had the old flush-deck ship Paul Jones (DD-230) first, and afterward the Fletcher-class destroyer Stoddard (DD-566).
Paul Jones came from the building program that followed the First World War. She was a four-stack destroyer of that earlier generation, and by 1941 she was serving with the Asiatic Fleet. In January 1942 she went into the night attack on Japanese shipping off Balikpapan with other old destroyers, and she later got clear of the Dutch East Indies as the Allied position there collapsed.
Unmacht commanded Paul Jones from 6 November 1943 to 4 October 1944. Charles Richard Herms had her at Balikpapan. The night attack there was Herms's command, and that night lay outside Unmacht's time in the ship. Through Unmacht's eleven months aboard, Paul Jones was a veteran escort, still asked for convoy and screening work while newer destroyers carried the fleet's main striking power.
He took Stoddard on 17 December 1944. She was a fleet destroyer of the late-war building program, with one stack, five 5-inch guns, and a torpedo battery meant for carrier screens and shore bombardment. The change of ships moved him from a destroyer completed after 1918 to one completed for the Pacific fighting of 1944 and 1945.
His command of Stoddard dates from 17 December 1944, when he was a commander in charge of that modern destroyer. Ships of her class then screened the heavy units, guarded transports, and filled the outer stations as the fleet closed on Japan. That December appointment placed Unmacht in command of Stoddard for the last phase of the Pacific war.