Ships
- USS Lewis Hancock (DD-675) Captain, 25 October 1945 – 1 November 1945
John B. Wilkes was a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy. He was captain of the destroyer Lewis Hancock (DD-675) from 25 October 1945 to 1 November 1945.
Lewis Hancock was a Fletcher-class destroyer, the large type that made up the core of the wartime destroyer force. She was a little more than 375 feet long, with a crew of about three hundred. Her main battery was five 5-inch guns, with torpedoes, lighter antiaircraft guns, and depth charges as well. Commissioned in 1943, she served in the Pacific through the last two years of the war, screening heavier ships in the fleet's operations against Japan.
Japan had surrendered on 2 September 1945, seven weeks before Wilkes took Lewis Hancock. The destroyer was still a commissioned warship, with watches to set and machinery to maintain, while the Pacific Fleet turned from combat toward occupation duty and the passage home. As captain he answered for her navigation, for the condition of her hull and engineering plant, and for the officers and enlisted men on board.
At lieutenant commander he held the full authority of captain of Lewis Hancock. Orders from senior officers afloat and ashore came to him, and he carried them out with the ship. The work was the ordinary work of a destroyer at the close of a long war: keeping station, upkeep, drills, and the care of her crew.
His command ended on 1 November 1945. John B. Wilkes had been captain of Lewis Hancock through the last days of October and the first day of November, a lieutenant commander on the bridge of a Pacific destroyer as the Navy reduced from wartime strength. The ship stayed in commission and continued with the fleet's postwar duties after he left her.