Ships
- USS Birmingham (CL-62) Captain from 29 January 1943 · Relieved on 11 August 1943
John Wilkes was a submariner for most of his career. He commanded the Asiatic Fleet's submarines through the first months of the Pacific war, when they could not stop the Japanese advance and had to withdraw to Java and then Australia. He was then given a new light cruiser, Birmingham (CL-62). He commissioned her in January 1943 and took her to the invasion of Sicily, then went on to help plan Normandy. He retired a vice admiral.
He was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, on 26 May 1895, the eldest son of John Francis and Anna Elizabeth Beale Wilkes. The Navy ran in the family. Wikipedia's article says his grandfather John Wilkes was in the first class at the Naval Academy and connects the family to Charles Wilkes, who led the United States Exploring Expedition and stopped the Trent. That link is from a single secondary source.
He entered the Naval Academy in June 1912 and graduated in June 1916. He spent the next three years in the armored cruiser Frederick, which included convoy escort in the North Atlantic during the First World War. In 1919 he went to submarine training. Over the next decade he commanded K-7 and S-47 and had a shore tour as Inspector of Machinery at Groton, Connecticut. From 1928 to 1930 he was at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, and for the following three years he commanded the big submarine V-1, renamed Barracuda in 1931. He spent 1933–35 with the naval ROTC unit at the University of California, Berkeley, and then went to sea as navigator of the heavy cruiser Indianapolis, where he was promoted to commander. After a tour at Mare Island he went to the Asiatic Fleet in June 1939 to command Submarine Division 15. From December 1939 he also commanded Submarine Squadron 5.
In December 1941 he had been the senior submariner on Admiral Thomas Hart's staff since 1939. When war came, the Asiatic Fleet's twenty-nine submarines were the fleet's main striking force. Under Wilkes's direction they tried for five days to get into Lingayen Gulf against the Japanese landings, and only S-38 made it in. On 29 December 1941 Wilkes and his staff left Corregidor in the submarine Swordfish for Surabaya, Java. When Java fell he moved the command to Fremantle, Western Australia, and became the base's first commander. The work there was short of spare parts and torpedoes, and much had been left behind in the Philippines. Rear Admiral Charles Lockwood relieved him on 22 May 1942.
He came home, attended the Naval War College, and on 29 January 1943 commissioned Birmingham at the Norfolk Navy Yard. He worked her up in Chesapeake Bay and took her across the Atlantic in June. On 10 July 1943 she was off Licata in Sicily, firing on batteries inland while her floatplanes were shot up by friendly and enemy fire. She was back in Norfolk on 8 August, and he gave up command on 11 August.
From August 1943 he held amphibious commands in England and France as a rear admiral and had a part in preparing the Normandy landings of June 1944 and the invasion of southern France that August. As the armies moved toward Germany he ran U.S. naval ports and bases in France. In May 1945 he went to the Pacific to administer amphibious forces for the planned invasion of Japan.
From late December 1945 to March 1947 he commanded the Atlantic Fleet's submarine force. He served with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and in August 1948 took command of U.S. Naval Forces, Germany. His last post, from March 1951, was a short tour as Commander, Eastern Sea Frontier. He retired in June 1951 and was advanced to vice admiral on the strength of a combat award. He died at the Bethesda Naval Hospital on 20 July 1957, aged 62.