Pacific ships

USN · Commander

Foley, James Louis

All captains
JF

Ships

James Louis Foley, United States Navy, was commanding officer of the minesweeper Bobolink at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 and senior officer present of the four minesweepers nested at the Coal Docks. He was then a lieutenant. A year later, still in Bobolink, he took her alongside the burning transport Alchiba off Guadalcanal and received the Silver Star. In 1944, as a lieutenant commander in the destroyer escort Chatelain, he received the Legion of Merit for a submarine action in the Atlantic. NavSource records him as a commander in the destroyer Hyman from 22 May 1945. Hall of Valor says he retired as a captain.

Hall of Valor gives his home as Mantica, California, and spells the name that way. It does not give a birth date, a birthplace, or the names of his parents. No Navy register entry consulted for this account supplied those facts, and they are not stated here. He is a different officer from Francis Joseph Foley.

NavSource and Hall of Valor both record that he was a member of the United States Naval Academy class of 1929. Neither source used here describes his academy years, his first ships, or the duties he held between graduation and the autumn of 1941. The first dated command these sources give him is Bobolink. NavSource lists him as a lieutenant, United States Navy, in command from 10 November 1941 to 8 June 1943, and notes the Naval Academy class on that line. The class year is not a rank.

He had been in Bobolink less than a month when the Japanese attacked. His report of 10 December 1941 says the ship was in a ready-duty status, moored at the westerly end of the Coal Docks with three other auxiliary minesweepers. As he placed them, Vireo and Turkey were inboard and Rail was outboard. He was senior officer present of the four, and the other ships followed Bobolink when he gave the order.

Signalman Second Class J. E. Williams, the gangway watch, came to Foley's cabin at 0756 and told him that Japanese planes were bombing. Foley stepped on deck, saw a low-flying plane with a red circle on the wings, and ordered general quarters and live ammunition. About 0806 Bobolink and Turkey opened fire on enemy planes within range. The officers of the deck of the other three ships asked about spreading the nest. He told them to tie up to the destroyer buoys next to the battle rafts named in the report. Bobolink slipped at 0835 and was at the first buoy at 0845.

The pointers of number 1 gun, Seaman First Class J. W. McCartney and Seaman First Class D. J. Williams, called out that a plane they had been aiming at was trailing smoke, had lost altitude, and had crashed at or near Hickam Field. Foley wrote that most of the bridge saw the crash and that no one could say which ship had hit the plane. He would say only that it was the result of fire from one of the minesweepers near the Coal Docks. He did not claim it for Bobolink.

About 0900, after a warning to watch for submarines, he saw a disturbance at Waipio Point and fired three shots at the slick and the mud. No ship was within a thousand yards. He wrote that he believed a submerged submarine had brushed the left bank of the channel. He signaled two outgoing destroyers to drop depth charges off the point. The signal was apparently not seen. That is his report's belief, not a confirmed sinking.

At noon the Commander Base Force ordered Bobolink to sweep the harbor with Turkey. The orders changed, and in the afternoon the two ships swept off Honolulu. At 1640 Bobolink was sent toward Nevada, then redirected alongside California. She moored next to Widgeon at 1730 and pumped California's forward section through the night. Foley reported no losses and no damage, and he declined to single anyone out.

Bobolink stayed in Hawaiian waters into the late summer of 1942, was converted to an ocean-going tug, and was reclassified AT-131 on 1 June 1942. In September she went south and worked as a tug from Guadalcanal, Espiritu Santo, and Noumea. Foley was still her captain on the morning of 28 November 1942. Hall of Valor's citation, from Commander South Pacific Force and Area, serial 265 of 21 January 1943, awards the Silver Star to Lieutenant James Louis Foley, service number 0-62592, for that morning. About six o'clock the transport Alchiba was torpedoed by a submarine off Guadalcanal. Fire took hold forward, and ammunition and petroleum in the forward holds burned. Foley laid Bobolink alongside and kept her there to help fight the fire, through the fire and through explosions of ammunition. When Alchiba's commanding officer ordered him clear because the fire seemed out of control, he left, and he came back shortly afterward to help again. The citation says his seamanship and the help he gave contributed to saving Alchiba and much of her cargo. It styles the conduct as in keeping with the traditions of the Naval service. NavSource's Bobolink page notes the Silver Star for 1942.

He left Bobolink on 8 June 1943, while she was still on South Pacific tug duty. The ship's history does not name his relief's first movements beyond the date. Hall of Valor next places him, as a lieutenant commander, in command of the destroyer escort Chatelain on 9 April 1944. The Legion of Merit citation, Commander in Chief, Atlantic, serial 2788 of 18 August 1944, says Chatelain was in a wide search for a submarine already detected. Another searching ship made contact and began attacking. Foley took Chatelain to that contact and helped the contacting ship press the attacks. Chatelain, with other ships and with aircraft, then took the submarine under gunfire, forced the crew to abandon, and completed the destruction. The citation credits his aggressiveness and the coordination of the attack, and it says an enemy submarine was sunk. It does not name the submarine. No source used here fills the months between Bobolink and Chatelain, or says how long he had been in Chatelain before 9 April.

NavSource's history of the destroyer Hyman lists Commander James Louis Foley in command from 22 May 1945 to 5 June 1946, after Commander Rollo Niel Norgaard. That is a wartime command: it had begun before the surrender in August 1945. The same NavSource page says Hyman was in overhaul at Mare Island from 16 May to 26 July 1945, so the first weeks of his command fell during that yard period. A photograph caption on the page records Lieutenant General Masao Watanabe of the Imperial Japanese Army, and an aide, coming aboard Hyman on 11 September 1945 to negotiate the surrender of Ponape. The page does not otherwise narrate Foley's cruises in her. His tour continued until 5 June 1946, after the war.

Hall of Valor says he retired as a captain. It does not give the date of retirement, a later station, or a date of death. Those facts were not found in the Navy registers or the ship pages used here, and they are omitted.