Ships
- USS Stevens (DD-479) Captain from 13 February 1945
George Washington Pressey was born in Hampton, Virginia, on 3 July 1910. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy with the class of 1932 and was commissioned in the Navy. In 1941, as a lieutenant, he was executive officer of the old four-stack destroyer Truxtun (DD-229) on screening duty in the North Atlantic southeast of Greenland. Before Truxtun was driven ashore and lost off Newfoundland in a blizzard on 18 February 1942, he had been ordered to the staff of the Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet, Vice Admiral Royal E. Ingersoll, as flag lieutenant. That duty took him to the heavy cruiser Augusta and later to the gunboat Vixen, ships that served as the fleet commander's flagships.
He was made a temporary lieutenant commander in June 1942 and a temporary commander that November, and he stayed with the Atlantic Fleet staff into the late summer of 1943. From 31 December 1942 to 18 September 1943 his work was the practical side of the U-boat war: antisubmarine weapons, the tactics that went with them, and a convoy-escort doctrine the fleet could actually use. Those same months included the planning for Atlantic Fleet forces in the invasions of North Africa and Sicily. The Legion of Merit followed for that tour.
In October 1943 he shifted to the Pacific and took command of the destroyer Hobby (DD-610). He remained her commanding officer until 29 January 1945. Hobby screened heavier ships as the offensive moved through the Philippines and on toward Formosa and the China coast, and in September 1944 she stood in to give gunfire support for the landings on Peleliu and Ngesebus in the Palau Islands.
Pressey became commanding officer of Stevens (DD-479) on 13 February 1945. The Fletcher-class destroyer had already been at war in the Pacific since the summer of 1943. Frank Haywood Ball had commissioned her at Charleston on 1 February 1943 and commanded her until September. William Magnus Rakow then had her through the long advance across the central and southwest Pacific, and turned the ship over to Pressey in February 1945.
Through the spring and summer of 1945, Stevens screened convoys, swept mines, and used her guns in support of landings in the Philippine and South China Seas and in the East Indies. Japanese aircraft were still striking at ships in those waters, and the destroyer had to fight them off while she worked. Early in March she was among the first Allied warships to anchor in Manila Bay after the battle for the city. She was sent out again almost at once. With the destroyer Young, she met the Norwegian freighter British Columbia Express, which was bringing Jean MacArthur, the general's wife, their young son, and the boy's nurse on the last leg of a voyage that had begun in Australia. The three ships entered Manila Bay on 6 March 1945 and anchored where there were still no piers they could use.
After the surrender, Stevens left Subic Bay on 28 August 1945 with a task group headed for the Yellow Sea and the west coast of Korea. She called at Okinawa, screened carriers into Inchon, and in mid-September went into Inchon for repairs. On 19 and 20 September she screened the cruiser New Orleans to Tsingtao and there helped watch Japanese ships being taken over by the Allies. Late in the month she moved to Taku, supported troop landings into the first week of October, joined a unit at Chefoo, and returned to Inchon. On 13 October she sailed for the United States with soldiers, sailors, and Marines on board, stopping at Guam and at Pearl Harbor before she reached San Diego on 7 November 1945. The next day she shifted to San Pedro and reported to the reserve fleet for inactivation. Pressey stayed in command through the early months of that overhaul and was relieved on 10 March 1946. The destroyer was decommissioned later the same year.
He was still a commander when he served in the battleship Missouri from 16 September 1950 to 28 March 1951, during her deployment to the Korean War. A Gold Star in lieu of a second Legion of Merit marked that service, and he was also awarded the Navy Distinguished Service Medal. He later became a rear admiral. Pressey died on active duty on 21 April 1966, at the age of fifty-five.