Ships
- USS Trenton (CL-11) Captain from 26 June 1943 · Relieved on 24 June 1944
Stanley Cook Norton had the light cruiser Trenton (CL-11) from 26 June 1943 to 24 June 1944. She was still on the Southeast Pacific patrol. On 28 August 1943 she held the German raider Michel on radar for nearly fifteen minutes, did not identify the contact, and the next day did not challenge the ship her lookouts never got a name for. He had already won the Navy Cross off Virginia, in command of a destroyer division, when Roper sank U-85. He retired a rear admiral.
He was born on 19 November 1894 in Falmouth, Maine. The Home of Heroes page gives Portland, Maine, as his home town. Wikipedia names his parents as Frank K. Norton and Flora Cook and marks that sentence as needing a citation.
He entered the Naval Academy in 1914. Wikipedia, citing the Academy's own account of the war class, says the class of 1918 was graduated on 28 June 1917, and that he was commissioned ensign and sent to Montana. A temporary lieutenancy followed in June 1918. The same article, citing the Navy registers, puts him in the submarines R-23, O-16, S-49, and S-31, at the submarine base at New London in 1924, in command of the gunboat Pampanga at Hong Kong by 1927, in command of Twiggs in 1932, and as gunnery officer of Richmond in 1934, then a lieutenant commander. It has him promoted to commander in 1938 and assigned as a naval reserve instructor in 1939. Uboat.net dates the commander rank to 23 June 1938.
He commanded Destroyer Division 54, his flag in Roper (DD-147). On the night of 13–14 April 1942 the division flagship sank the German submarine U-85 off the coast of Virginia, with no injury to the ship or her men. The Navy Cross citation credits his leadership as division commander. Wikipedia quotes a description of that sinking as the first German submarine sunk in the war by a United States man-of-war, and says the captain of Roper was also awarded the Navy Cross. Uboat.net dates a temporary captain's rank to 15 June 1942. Wikipedia says he was promoted to captain on that day.
DANFS lists him as Capt. Stanley C. Norton from 26 June 1943. Uboat.net gives the same day and relieves him on 24 June 1944, the day DANFS gives to Captain William B. Coleman. NavSource's commanding-officer list for CL-11 does not name him. DANFS places the ship, in those months, on the South American patrol, at the Michel contact of 28–29 August 1943, and at Valparaiso on 11 January 1944.
Wikipedia says he retired in July 1947 after thirty years' service and was advanced on the retired list to rear admiral for a combat commendation. He died on 4 April 1978 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, aged 83. The article says a son, Stanley C. Norton Jr., was born while Norton was stationed in Hong Kong and died in 2016.