Pacific ships

USN · Lieutenant Commander

Slaughter, John Sim

All captains
JS

Ships

John Sim Slaughter, known as Jack, was born on 19 January 1914 in Muskogee, Oklahoma. His father, John James Slaughter, co-owned the Oklahoma Rig and Supply Company, and his mother was Anna Bradley Slaughter. He grew up in Muskogee, finished Central High School in 1932, and graduated from the United States Naval Academy with the class of 1937.

His first ship was the cruiser Chester, then stationed at Long Beach. In 1939 he joined the Asiatic Fleet destroyer John D. Ford at Manila as a junior officer. He was aboard her when the Pacific war began in December 1941, and his service in that campaign took him into the Java Sea. He was not her captain at Balikpapan. In the January 1942 night attack there, John D. Ford was commanded by Jacob Elliott Cooper.

On 26 October 1943, as a lieutenant commander still in his late twenties, Slaughter himself took command of John D. Ford. The old four-stack destroyer had come through the early defeats in the Indies and was back in the Southwest Pacific war. He remained her captain until 21 May 1944.

He next commanded Welles, taking her on 24 August 1944. The Gleaves-class destroyer worked the western Pacific landings under him: Angaur and Peleliu, Leyte, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. He was relieved on 2 January 1946. In July 1945, while he was still her captain, the Navy advanced him to the temporary rank of commander.

The action that brought him a Silver Star fell in the Leyte campaign. From 19 to 25 October 1944, Welles operated with the fire support and bombardment group in Leyte Gulf and Surigao Strait, screening the force while the landings went forward in waters the Japanese could still reach. The award, in the rank of lieutenant commander, recognized his conduct as commanding officer through those days.

He stayed in the Navy after the war and commanded four more ships. Later duty included the light cruiser Springfield, the destroyer William M. Wood, the ammunition ship Mount Baker, and the command ship Northampton. He retired in 1967 as a captain, thirty years after he was commissioned.

Slaughter died in Baltimore on 1 February 2017, at Roland Park Place, of complications from a fall. He was 103. He was the last surviving member of the Naval Academy class of 1937.