Ships
- USS Capps (DD-550) Captain from 6 November 1945
Lieutenant J. W. Robertson, a Naval Reserve officer, became commanding officer of the Fletcher-class destroyer USS Capps (DD-550) on 6 November 1945. He kept that duty until 18 February 1946. Japan had surrendered in September, and the ship was moving into the quieter routine of a fleet that was standing down.
Capps had been built by Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation at Chickasaw, Alabama. She was launched on 31 May 1942 and commissioned on 23 June 1943. Her first commanding officer was Bruce Edward Scofield Trippensee, who had her from commissioning until 24 October 1944. In that opening year she served with the Atlantic Fleet, operated with the British Home Fleet, and then crossed to the Pacific.
James Marshall Wood relieved Trippensee on 24 October 1944 and commanded Capps through the last year of the war, turning her over to Robertson on 6 November 1945. Under Wood she screened fast carrier forces, including air strikes toward Manila late in November 1944, and then stood radar picket and air-sea rescue duty while escorting convoys among Saipan, Guam, Eniwetok, and Ulithi. In February 1945 she trained with underwater demolition teams at Ulithi and sailed for Iwo Jima, where she bombarded the island for about three weeks and put the teams onto the beaches. She next screened escort carriers through the long Okinawa campaign. A kamikaze exploded close aboard on 3 April 1945, and she stayed with the group. That summer she returned to San Pedro, California, for overhaul, and on 12 September 1945 she was photographed off that port.
Robertson's own tour was the short postwar stretch from 6 November 1945 to 18 February 1946. As a lieutenant he was responsible for the destroyer and her crew while the wartime fleet was being reduced. Lieutenant Commander Joseph Henry Laliberte relieved him on 18 February 1946. Capps remained in commission until 15 January 1947. On 15 May 1957 the United States transferred her to Spain, where she served as Lepanto until she was stricken on 31 December 1985 and scrapped.