Ships
- USS John D. Henley (DD-553) Captain from 30 June 1945
Simon Everett Ramey (27 October 1913 – 21 September 1999) was a United States Navy officer from Stanford, Kentucky, a graduate of the Naval Academy in the class of 1937 and the holder of service number 0-78765. He served as a junior officer in the light cruiser Trenton, the destroyer Preston and the old destroyer Waters. From 2 September 1944 to 17 May 1945 he commanded the destroyer Edwards in the Philippines. For screening a resupply convoy to Ormoc on Leyte on 11–12 December 1944 he received the Silver Star, and for a four-day running fight against enemy aircraft in which, the citation says, his ship's gunfire and radar warnings contributed to the destruction of thirty-seven enemy planes, the Legion of Merit with Combat "V." From 30 June 1945 until she was decommissioned on 30 April 1946 he commanded the destroyer John D. Henley. He retired as a captain.
He was born on 27 October 1913 in Kentucky. A Social Security-derived genealogical listing names his parents as Stephen H. Ramey and Martha Reynolds. The Naval Academy's yearbook and the Navy's award records give his home as Stanford, Kentucky. The sources examined here say nothing more of his family, his schooling, or what turned a boy from Stanford toward the Navy. The Navy Registers of the 1930s list him among the midshipmen as appointed "at large." The registers do not say who recommended him.
He entered the Academy in the summer of 1933 and was nineteen.
The 1937 Lucky Bag, the midshipmen's yearbook, gives his nickname as "Si," though the text calls him "Everett." It is a short entry, and the portrait it draws is of a quiet, unhurried man with unusual hobbies. "IT takes no Arnold Bennett to teach Everett how to live," it begins. "He is wonderfully balanced; he loves music and he is a fiend in his passion for searching out the inner workings of broken down clocks. He is bashful (ah, what a weapon!), but he never lacks confidence in any undertaking." He was "very adept at foreign languages," and the writer teases that his future wife should not be alarmed "if someone whispers soulful German phrases to you in the morning, some clever repartee in French at dinner, and bursts into a happy Italian air almost any time of day. It will be just Everett." The entry lists no sport and no club; it ends with the words "One Stripe," which it does not explain, and says nothing of grades or class standing.
He graduated in June 1937, at twenty-three, and was commissioned an ensign. The Navy Directories of 1937 and 1938 list him as an ensign in the light cruiser Trenton, and the Navy Register for 1938 lists him as an ensign. The ship's official history records that in January 1938 Trenton, flagship of a four-cruiser detachment, went to Sydney for Australia's sesquicentennial; the directories do not say whether he was aboard for that cruise. By the directories of 1939 he was an ensign in the destroyer Preston, a Mahan-class ship commissioned in October 1936 and, according to her official history, engaged in peacetime training exercises in the Pacific until 7 December 1941. In the directories of 1940 and 1941 he is in the old destroyer Waters, and the Navy Registers of 1940 and 1941 list him as a lieutenant (junior grade).
Waters was an old Wickes-class destroyer that, her official history says, was in port at San Diego and "still operating with the Sound School" when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The history says she made a three-hour antisubmarine sweep of the approaches that afternoon, sailed on 8 December in the screen of the carrier Saratoga, and spent ten days at Oahu, periodically patrolling the approaches to Pearl Harbor. The sources examined here do not say when Ramey joined or left her, or what his duties were.
The sources examined here do not show where he served from the end of his Waters tour until the late summer of 1944. The Navy Registers show him as a lieutenant in 1942 and a lieutenant commander in 1943 and 1944. What he did in those years has not been found.
On 2 September 1944, according to uboat.net, he took command of the destroyer Edwards. He was thirty. She was a Benson-class ship commissioned in September 1942 whose official history is a long list of Pacific work: the sinking of the cruiser Chicago in January 1943, when she rescued 224 men; the Aleutians; Rabaul and Tarawa; and, in 1944, the Marshalls patrols. She was overhauled at Pearl Harbor in August 1944. A secondary history credits her with a battle star for the Palau operations from 6 September to 14 October 1944. She reached San Pedro Bay at Leyte on 30 October for patrol.
On 7 December she joined the assault force for the landings at Ormoc on Leyte's western coast, where, her history says, she "splashed several of the hard hitting air attackers as well as aiding ships they had damaged." The Silver Star citation, issued by the Commander, Seventh Fleet (serial 0656, 9 February 1945), describes the next two days. He was screening "an urgent and vital convoy of supplies to isolated U.S. Army forces at Ormoc" during 11 and 12 December, when he "maneuvered his ship and directed her batteries against two heavy daylight enemy air attacks, and intermittent night harassment by enemy planes." The citation continues, "His great courage, skill, and efficiency materially contributed to the successful completion of the mission." He was thirty-one. On the 11th, the ship's history adds, Edwards took on casualties from the destroyer Caldwell, which a suicide plane had set on fire. That afternoon, a suicide plane also sank the destroyer Reid, which was escorting the second resupply echelon into Ormoc Bay, with the loss of 103 of her 268 men.
The Legion of Merit citation, which carries no date, describes him as commanding officer of Edwards "during a four-day running battle against enemy aircraft." "Lieutenant Commander Ramey was constantly alert," it reads, "and by his efficient gunfire, shiphandling, radar warning and general assistance to the convoy, he contributed greatly to the protection of the convoy, to the destruction of thirty-seven enemy aircraft and to the damaging and driving off of many more." These two citations are all that the sources examined here say of him in action. What it was like on his bridge during those days is not recorded in any source found.
The ship's history shows what the rest of his command was. She remained in the Philippines "shepherding supply convoys through to Mindoro, Lingayen Gulf, Polloc Harbor, and Davao Gulf," and a secondary account has her leaving port on 4 January 1945 with a unit bound for Lingayen Gulf and remaining off Luzon until the 18th. On 9 May 1945 she arrived at Morotai for the Borneo operations. The command lists end his time in her on 17 May 1945.
On 30 June 1945 he took command of the Fletcher-class destroyer John D. Henley. She had been commissioned in February 1944 under Commander Charles H. Smith, who received the Legion of Merit for her service in the Marianas, Palau, the Philippines, Iwo Jima and the opening of Okinawa. Her history has her at Leyte Gulf on 27 June, covering minesweepers north of Okinawa from 1 July, and at Buckner Bay on 7 August; she was there when the war ended on 15 August. The command lists give his promotion to commander as 20 July 1945, when he was thirty-one. After the surrender she stood air-sea rescue station off Japan beginning 24 August, left on 2 September, the day of the formal surrender, and reached San Francisco on 24 September.
John D. Henley was overhauled and decommissioned at San Diego on 30 April 1946, and the command lists give that date as the end of his time in her. The Navy Register for 1945 lists him, but the sources examined here do not say where he served after the war. The Hall of Valor web page says only that he "retired as a U.S. Navy Captain."
A Social Security-derived listing gives his death as 21 September 1999, at the age of eighty-five, with a postal code in Garden Grove, California. No obituary, marriage record, wife's name, children, or burial place was found. The Naval Academy yearbook of 1937 teased him about a future wife; whether he married, and whom, is unknown from the sources examined here.
What survives, then, is slight: a classmates' affectionate paragraph about a bashful, musical young man with a passion for the insides of broken clocks and a gift for languages; the sea tours of a destroyer officer of the 1930s; two paragraphs of citation language about three days off Leyte; and a ship decommissioned on a spring day in California. The sources examined here contain no letter, no memoir, no oral history and no photograph of him.