Ships
- USS Tingey (DD-539) Captain from 25 November 1943
John Odgers Miner was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on 22 June 1910. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1931 and went to sea in the battleship Maryland. Further tours followed in the battleship Utah, the heavy cruiser Minneapolis, and the destroyer Cushing. During the Second World War he was executive officer of the destroyer Meade before he received a destroyer of his own. He held the rank of commander by November 1942.
On 25 November 1943 Miner placed the new Fletcher-class destroyer Tingey (DD-539) in commission at the Bethlehem Steel yard in San Francisco, as her first commanding officer. Mrs. Garry Owen had sponsored the ship at her launch that spring. Miner spent the remaining weeks of 1943 and the start of 1944 working the crew up off the West Coast. Tingey sailed from San Francisco for the Pacific on 2 February 1944.
In Hawaiian waters the ship exercised through February and March, then guarded a convoy bound for the Marshall Islands at the beginning of April. On 13 April she left Majuro and joined Rear Admiral Marc A. Mitscher’s fast carrier striking force. Later that month, during carrier attacks on Eten and Dublon in the Truk lagoon, Japanese aircraft hit the formation and Tingey suffered casualties among her men. She remained in the screen of Battleship Division 7. On 1 May she joined the bombardment of Tumu Point, a base the Japanese were using for submarines and aircraft.
From 15 June to 27 November 1944 Miner kept Tingey with the heavy ships through the Central Pacific campaign. Off Saipan he fought the destroyer’s guns against Japanese air attack while American forces went ashore. He took the ship through the Battle of the Philippine Sea and the retaking of Guam, recovered six downed American aircrews from waters still under the enemy, shelled shore positions, and stayed in action through the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The Silver Star recognized that stretch of command, and a letter of commendation also came while he had the ship. His tour ended on 30 December 1944.
After the war Miner commanded the battleship Wisconsin and served as naval attaché in Rome. He advanced to rear admiral. From 26 August 1963 to 4 August 1965 he was deputy director for operations of the National Military Command System, and from 5 August 1965 through May 1966 he headed the Western Hemisphere division of the plans and policy directorate under the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Legion of Merit marked that duty in Washington. He retired as a rear admiral and died in Bethesda, Maryland, on 21 April 1999, at the age of eighty-eight.