Ships
- USS Aulick (DD-569) Captain, 16 March 1944 – 24 March 1945
Commander John Douglas Andrew had the destroyer Aulick (DD-569) from 16 March 1944 to 24 March 1945. The word “captain” on that command is the billet. The rank he held while he had her was commander. The dates match a compiled commanding-officer list, not a log opened for this essay. What the Navy’s own books will support is a Wisconsin birth, a California appointment, the Naval Academy class of 1932, an ensign’s bunk on Arkansas, a postgraduate engineering ticket, a year on a destroyer-squadron staff, a son buried in 1939, and then, in the last year of the Pacific war, one Fletcher-class destroyer through Guam, the Palaus, Leyte, Surigao Strait, and a kamikaze at the eastern entrance of Leyte Gulf. He brought what was left of her home. He commissioned another destroyer after the surrender, made captain in 1951, and is carried on the retired list as a rear admiral. He died in 1982.
He is not John Andrews Jr., Naval Academy class of 1929, the officer a commander list gives to Montgomery (DM-17). He is not John Joseph Andrews, the Marine gunner who sits near him in the old registers. He is not Terrell Andrew Nisewaner, a classmate whose name is easy to split the wrong way. Aulick is named for Commodore John H. Aulick, who died in 1873. That is a different man, and a different century.
Origins
The Register of 1 January 1933, in the columns that continue the ensigns onto the next page, gives the birth date that belongs to signal number 5783 as 19 October 1910 and the state as Wisconsin. The same row gives the date of entry as 15 June 1928 and the state of appointment as California. The Register of 1 July 1942 prints the same birthday and the same day of entry beside his lieutenant commander’s line. The Register of 1 July 1944 prints them again. The Department of Veterans Affairs burial record, transcribed from the Fort Rosecrans roll, gives the same birthday and the death date 29 September 1982.
The town is not in any of those books. A secondary commander list says Mason, Wisconsin. That list was not checked against a birth certificate. The Lucky Bag of 1932 heads his sketch “San Jose, California,” which is the home the Academy printed, not necessarily the place he was born. His classmates, writing the sketch, made a joke of the uncertainty: “from some place in the far West, some say California, others British Columbia, or even Wisconsin.” Wisconsin and California are the two states the Register actually uses. British Columbia is not in any page read here. It is a classmate’s guess, and it should stay one.
His parents’ names were not found. The burial record names two wives and one child, and names them only as relations of the man in the grave. Dorothy Blanche Andrew, born 18 March 1912, died 26 April 1948, section G, site 287, “Wife of John Douglas Andrew.” Alma Corina Andrew, born 24 January 1913, died 1 December 1972, the same site, “Wife of John D Andrew.” Donald Robert Andrew, no birth date printed, died 28 August 1939, section PS-9, site 642, “Son (Minor Child) of John Douglas Andrew.” No marriage date, no other child, and no cause of death for any of them was in the record. The order of the two wives is the order of their deaths. That is all the record gives.
The Academy
He entered the Naval Academy with the date the registers call his entry, 15 June 1928, and he finished with the class of 1932. The Lucky Bag puts him on page 184, “Jack” and “Andy,” and spends the sketch on the things classmates notice: a man who seemed to enjoy the place, letters and telegrams from more than one girl after every leave, class football until he went up to B-squad, studies that “never worried him seriously.” The activity line under the sketch reads: class football, football B-squad, track, boxing, Juice Gang, Press Club, two stripes as a petty officer. “Juice,” in the Academy’s own slang, was electrical engineering. The class book is not a transcript, and it is not a fitness report. It is the only portrait of him before the Navy started printing stations beside his name.
A footnote at the foot of the page before his lieutenant-commander entry in the Register of 1 July 1942 reads “Commissioned ensign June 2, 1932.” On the ensign page of the Register of 1 January 1933 his date-of-rank cell is a ditto, in a run of classmates whose explicit date, at the head of that page, is 2 June 1932. The day is the class’s day. It is not a day this essay watched a clerk write onto his individual line.
Arkansas, a school, a squadron staff
On 1 January 1933 the Register lists him as Ensign John Douglas Andrew, signal number 5783, present duty Arkansas. The man above him is on Marblehead. The man below him is on Maryland. He was one ensign in a battleship’s wardroom, seven months out of Annapolis if the June commission date is his. The Register does not say what he did on her.
The next register read for him, the volume of 1936, still has the name, now as lieutenant (junior grade), signal number 5139. The duty line did not survive the optical reading. Between Arkansas and the summer of 1940 the station is a blank, except for a course code.
By the Register of 1 July 1940 the code beside his name is 22-f. In the explanatory notes of the Register of 1 July 1942, which use the same numbering, 22-f is “Completed postgraduate course in naval engineering (operating).” He had been sent to school to learn a destroyer’s machinery from the inside. The same 1940 page, which was read as a photograph and not only as type the machine guessed, lists him as a lieutenant, signal number 4428, special courses 22-f, and present duty “Staff, comdr. destroyer squadron 36.” The date-of-rank cell is a ditto of the last date written out above him on that page, 8 December 1939, and it carries the flag (Y). The notes of that register say (Y) means “Subject to examination, and/or confirmation.” Two years later the Register of 1 July 1942 does not ditto the day. It prints his permanent rank as lieutenant and the date of that rank as 1 November 1939. The two books do not agree on the day. The later book is the one that states a day of its own. The earlier book is the one that says the day it is copying had not yet been confirmed.
Staff duty is not command of the squadron, and it is not command of any ship in it. The register does not name the flagship. No order read here says what he did for the commander of Destroyer Squadron 36.
The sea-service columns on the page facing his name in the Register of 1 July 1942 give him two years and six months’ sea service in rank, nine years’ total sea service, a cruise or a shore duty begun in September 1939, and a last cruise expired in June 1938. The station name is not on that page. If the September 1939 date is the start of the squadron-staff duty the 1940 register still shows, then he had been on that staff for the better part of a year when the register of 1 July 1940 was closed. That is a reading, not a sentence the register prints.
Donald Robert Andrew died on 28 August 1939. The burial record calls him a minor child and does not give a birthday, so it does not say whether he was an infant or a boy. The date falls in the gap the 1942 register leaves between a cruise expired in June 1938 and a duty begun in September 1939. Nothing read here says where the father was that week, or whether he was at sea.
The rank he took to war
On 1 July 1942 the Register lists him as a lieutenant commander by temporary rank dated 15 June 1942, permanent rank still lieutenant from 1 November 1939, course code 21. Course 21, in that register’s own key, is “Completed postgraduate course in general line duties.” The engineering code 22-f is not repeated on the line. That may be a change in what the Navy chose to print. It is not evidence that the earlier course was cancelled.
By the Register of 1 July 1944 he is on the commanders’ list, signal number 3627, courses 14 and 21. Course 14 is “Completed Naval War College command course.” It was not on his line in July 1942, so the Navy credited it between those two registers. He took Aulick on 16 March 1944 if the compiled list is right, which is inside that window. The command course and the destroyer command sit in the same two years. The register does not say which came first. A secondary list dates his temporary commander’s rank to 18 November 1942. The 1944 register’s rank-date cells, as the optical reading left them, are dittos. The day was not recovered. It is not used here as a fact.
The registers of 1942 and 1944 do not print a ship beside his name. From the summer of 1942 until the compiled date he joined Aulick, his sea duty is a blank. That blank is the first year and a half of the American war in the Pacific. He may have been at the War College. He may have been on a staff the registers stopped publishing in wartime. Neither has been shown.
Aulick
Aulick (DD-569) was the second ship of the name, a Fletcher, laid down at Consolidated Steel in Orange, Texas, on 14 May 1941, launched 2 March 1942, commissioned 27 October 1942 with Lieutenant Commander O. P. Thomas Jr. in command. The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships sends her to the South Pacific in 1943, onto a coral reef off New Caledonia at 0411 on 10 March 1943 while making twenty knots, and then through a long repair: Nouméa, a tow to Pearl Harbor, Puget Sound, back to Pearl, and on 22 January 1944 to the west coast. She reported to the Fleet Operational Training Command in San Francisco on 3 February 1944, a training ship for engineering, ordnance, and deck duties. None of that cruise was his. Thomas still had her.
The compiled list gives her to Commander John Douglas Andrew on 16 March 1944, while she was still that training ship, and gives her next to Lieutenant Commander William Reese Hunnicutt Jr. on 24 March 1945. NavSource credits the list to Wolfgang Hechler and Ron Reeves. The deck log was not opened. Everything between those days is his only if the list is right. The narrative below is the ship’s narrative in that interval, told as his on that condition.
On 11 April 1944, still in the training duty, she rescued sixteen men from a downed PBM. The Dictionary’s text, as republished, calls it an Army PBM. Another retelling calls it a Navy PBM Mariner. The date and the sixteen men are the part both tellings share. On 18 May she was relieved of the training duty and went to the Bethlehem yard in San Francisco. She was at Pearl Harbor on 27 June. After exercises she sailed on 9 July in the screen of twelve transports for the invasion of Guam, arrived 22 July, and stayed, patrolling and screening ships of the Fifth Fleet, until 6 August.
She resupplied at Eniwetok, met Task Group 32.4 on 21 August, and spent about three weeks at Guadalcanal preparing for the Palaus. She sailed with Task Group 32.7 on 8 September, arrived on the 15th, and supported the landings on Peleliu and Angaur. On 30 September she went to Manus to join the Seventh Fleet. On 12 October she sailed for the Philippines. She was off Leyte on 18 October.
The next day she was assigned to the northern fire-support group: shore bombardment, night harassing fire, close support. She entered San Pedro Bay at 0655 and opened fire at 1115. At about 1212 Japanese shells hit her. Flying shrapnel killed one man. At 1328 she ceased fire and retired for the night. She fired again on 20 and 21 October. From 22 through 24 October she stood by and did not fire her guns. The Dictionary is specific about the guns and about the one death. It does not give the dead man’s name.
The Silver Star citation, as carried by the Hall of Valor from the official text, tells the same week in a different key. It awards the Silver Star to Commander John Douglas Andrew, service number 0-71303, commanding officer of Aulick, for Leyte Gulf and Surigao Strait. It says that from 19 to 24 October the ship, in the fire-support and bombardment group, screened in dangerous waters, “continually subjected to enemy mortar fire and air attacks.” The Dictionary says shells, one dead, and then two more days of fire support and three days of standing by. Mortar fire and air attacks are the citation’s words. They are not in the Dictionary’s sentences for those days. Both can be true. They are not the same sentence, and this essay will not collapse them.
On the night of 24–25 October the southern Japanese force came up Surigao Strait. The Dictionary’s account puts Aulick in the screen of the American battleships and cruisers that were waiting for it. Those guns broke the first Japanese force. A second force turned back. “As the Japanese retreated, the American ships, including Aulick, joined in sinking a Japanese destroyer of the Akitsuki class.” Then they were ordered back to Leyte Gulf. The Dictionary does not name the destroyer. The citation does not mention a sinking at all. It says that on the nights of 24–25 October his ship took part in the battle, and that “by his courage, perseverance and determination he brought his ship through.” No action report of Aulick was read for this essay. The class name in the Dictionary is the Dictionary’s. It was not checked here against a Japanese roster, and it is not repeated below as a ship this essay has identified.
Reports then put a large Japanese force to the north. Aulick and five other destroyers waited off the south coast of Homonhon Island for an attack that did not come. On 29 October she sailed with Task Group 77.2 for Seeadler Harbor. On 17 November she went out to meet West Virginia in Vitiaz Strait, brought the battleship back to Seeadler, took her on to Ulithi, and on 22 November sailed for Leyte again. She was in the gulf on 25 November and back with Task Group 77.2.
The evening of 29 November
On 29 November 1944, on antisubmarine patrol in the eastern entrance of Leyte Gulf, she was attacked at 1750 by six Japanese planes. The Dictionary’s account is plain. One plane peeled off, dived, dropped a bomb close aboard, and exploded when it hit the water about twenty yards off the port bow. Another struck the starboard side of the bridge with a wingtip, went on forward and down, and exploded near the bow just above the main deck. The explosion set number 2 gun and its handling room on fire. Metal fragments killed several men on the bridge and on the flying bridge. The totals in that account are 31 killed, 64 wounded, and 1 missing.
A secondary commander list says 32 killed and 63 wounded, and says the wounded included the commanding officer. The Dictionary does not say that. It puts dead men on the bridge and the flying bridge, which is where a captain often is, and it does not put his name among them. This essay does not know whether he was hit. It knows the ship was, and that the men around the place he would have been standing were.
Pringle relieved her. She went to San Pedro Bay, transferred her wounded, and made emergency repairs. On 1 December she sailed for the west coast by Seeadler Harbor and Pearl Harbor, and she entered the Mare Island Navy Yard on Christmas Eve. If the compiled dates hold, that passage was his: a month, with a wrecked bow and a ship’s company short thirty-one men, from Leyte Gulf to a California yard. Nothing read here quotes him on it.
She began sea trials on 24 February 1945 and refresher training out of San Diego, and she left the west coast on 7 March. After more training at Pearl Harbor she sailed on 25 March for the Philippines. The compiled list relieves Andrew on 24 March, the day before that sailing. If both dates are right, Mindanao, the later Okinawa picket line, and the rest of Aulick’s war belong to Hunnicutt. They are not told here.
The Silver Star is the only decoration this essay has seen cited for him. The Hall of Valor entry lists that one award, notes the Academy class of 1932, gives his home as San Jose, and says he retired as a rear admiral. It does not print a general-order number. The order itself was not opened.
After the ship burned
The file number in the Register of 1 January 1956 is 071303, the same number the citation uses. That register lists him as a captain, designator 1100, unrestricted line, with a date-of-rank field that reads 1 January 1951 and the birthday 19 October 1910. He is still a captain in the Register of 1 January 1958. He is not in the active-duty register of 1 January 1959. A secondary list dates the retirement, as rear admiral, to January 1959. The Hall of Valor says he retired as a rear admiral and does not date it. The burial record styles him RADM and credits WORLD WAR II and VIETNAM. The active registers, as read here, stop before 1959. They do not show a Vietnam command, and they do not show a ship after Orleck. The Vietnam line on the grave record is unexplained. It is not a war this essay can narrate.
Orleck (DD-886) was laid down at the same Orange yard on 28 November 1944, launched 12 May 1945, and commissioned 15 September 1945, “Comdr. J. D. Andrew in command.” The ship’s museum, which prints his name in full on its list of commanding officers, gives him 15 September 1945 to 17 October 1946 and says the dates were checked against her deck logs. A secondary list ends the command on 1 December 1946. The two end dates are both after the summer of 1946. They are not the same day.
The Dictionary, as the museum reprints it, sends her through a Caribbean shakedown and then, on 20 January 1946, toward San Diego, and in mid-March west to the Seventh Fleet. Between 20 April and 15 August 1946 she ran mail from Hong Kong to Shanghai, Tsingtao, Taku, and Jinsen, and assisted minesweeping in Hainan Strait. A month of exercises off Guam came next, and then Task Force 77 off China and Japan, undated except that she sailed for home in January 1947. The dated China work sits inside both candidate end dates for his command. The undated Task Force 77 stretch, and the January 1947 homecoming, do not. She was a new ship in a war that was already over, on a coast that was not at peace. He had come to her from a destroyer that had been hit on the bridge. The Dictionary does not say whether anyone on board knew that, and it does not have to.
Dorothy Blanche Andrew died on 26 April 1948. She was thirty-six. She is buried at Fort Rosecrans in section G, site 287. Alma Corina Andrew died on 1 December 1972 and was buried in that same site. He died on 29 September 1982 and was buried in section G, site 288, the next number in the same section. The record calls him a rear admiral of the Navy. It does not name a hospital, a house, or a cause.
No letter, no oral history, and no obituary was found. The only sentences in which anyone tried to say what he was like are the classmates’ sentences of 1932: generous, kind-hearted, inclined to hide it, not much troubled by the books, and likely, once he got underway, to want the people ahead of him to stand clear. The Navy’s later books do not confirm the joke and do not contradict it. They show a man who was sent to engineering school, put on a squadron staff, given a destroyer in the last year of the war, and kept in command of her after the bridge was torn up. They show a child dead before the war and a wife dead three years after it. They do not show what he thought about any of it.