Ships
- USS Alden (DD-211) Captain, 27 January 1945 to 20 July 1945 · She was decommissioned on 15 July 1945. NavSource carries him to 20 July.
John Graham York was born in 1915 and held his commission in the United States Naval Reserve. A lieutenant since 1 December 1942, he became captain of the destroyer Alden on 27 January 1945 and remained in command until 20 July 1945. On that last day he was advanced to lieutenant commander.
Alden (DD-211) was a Clemson-class destroyer built by William Cramp and Sons at Philadelphia. Her keel was laid on 24 October 1918, she was launched on 14 May 1919 with the admiral's niece Sarah Alden Dorsey as sponsor, and she was commissioned on 24 November 1919, named for Rear Admiral James Alden, Jr. Soon afterward she went out to the eastern Mediterranean, calling at Constantinople and at Samsun on the Turkish coast, and then settled into the long routine of the Asiatic Fleet. The Navy took her out of commission on 24 January 1923 and restored her to service on 8 May 1930. The years that followed were spent in the Far East. York received her only when that career had a few months left to run.
At the opening of the Pacific war Alden was still on the Asiatic Station. In December 1941 she was at Manila and Barker was at Olongapo when both ships were ordered out at once. Alden sailed in such haste that her captain, Stanley Martyn Haight, and several officers and men were still ashore. She got clear of the Philippines, came through the campaign in the Netherlands East Indies, and went on to escort duty in the Southwest Pacific while most of the destroyers of her old station were lost. She was back on the Atlantic coast by the winter of 1945, and that was the ship York took over.
The new command had four days of ordinary duty. On 31 January 1945 Alden collided with the fast transport Hayter. York brought the destroyer into the Norfolk Navy Yard, and the repairs kept her there until 28 February. She came out of the yard into a fleet that was already laying up its oldest flush-deck destroyers, with Alden among the ships whose service would end that summer.
Alden was decommissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 15 July 1945. York's command ran through 20 July, so he remained her captain for five days after the ship had left commission. The Navy struck her name on 13 August 1945 and sold her for scrap on 30 November 1945. His tour covered the collision, the Norfolk repair period, and the last weeks of a destroyer that had been in service since 1919.