Ships
- USS Lardner (DD-487) Captain, 18 May 1944 – 7 June 1945
Jefferson David Parker was born in Texas on 6 August 1912. He entered the United States Naval Academy with the class of 1935 and was commissioned an ensign that June. He became a lieutenant (junior grade) in June 1938, a lieutenant in January 1942, and a lieutenant commander in May 1943.
On 18 May 1944 he took command of the destroyer USS Lardner (DD-487), a Gleaves-class ship built by Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company at Kearny, New Jersey. The second Navy ship to carry the name, she honored Rear Admiral James L. Lardner of the Civil War. Commissioned on 13 May 1942 under William M. Sweetser, she had already served through the Guadalcanal campaign and the fighting in the Solomons. Parker relieved Otto Carl Schatz, who had commanded her since June 1943.
His first months aboard fell in the Marianas campaign. Through June and July 1944, Lardner took part in the occupations of Saipan, Guam, and Tinian, screened carriers on the opening raid against the Bonin Islands, and was present for the Battle of the Philippine Sea, the carrier action that broke the remaining strength of Japanese naval aviation.
The ship then went home for her wartime overhaul at Bremerton, Washington, and was photographed in Puget Sound in September 1944. She sailed for the Pacific again on 29 September and spent most of October in Hawaiian waters before moving back toward the western Pacific.
From 19 November 1944 into March 1945, Lardner escorted convoys among Ulithi, Eniwetok, Kossol Passage, and Leyte, the anchorages that fed the advance toward the Philippines. In the spring of 1945 she supported the Okinawa campaign, screening and escorting the forces gathered for that assault.
Parker left Lardner on 7 June 1945, after a little more than a year in command. James Boyd relieved him. Parker died on 2 February 2002, at the age of 89.