Ships
- USS Heermann (DD-532) Captain from 19 August 1945
William King Yarnall was a United States Navy officer from Merchantville, New Jersey, who graduated from the Naval Academy with the class of 1939. As a lieutenant commander he took command of the destroyer Heermann (DD-532) on 19 August 1945, four days after the Japanese government accepted the Allied terms, and held the ship through her trip from the Japanese coast to the United States and into her pre-reserve overhaul at San Pedro, California. The ship he took over had earned a Presidential Unit Citation at the Battle off Samar in October 1944, under another captain.
He is listed as of Merchantville, New Jersey, in the 1939 Lucky Bag (the Academy yearbook), and in a roster of the Heermann's personnel published in 1946 his address is 11 Springfield Avenue, Merchantville. The sources examined here give no birth date, parents or schooling before the Academy.
The class book calls him "Willy" and "Bill." It describes him as "a squarely built, well featured fellow, one hand in his rear pocket, the other hand helping to explain an important point." He was "rather a thoughtful lad and therefore takes life somewhat seriously, yet he does enjoy good humor." He was "hardly one of the savvy boys, except in French, yet academics never bother him." He "doesn't drag very often; women have no special significance for him. In fact, he spends Sunday afternoons studying German." Athletically he "most enjoys baseball and squash." The writers close: "Navy tradition means a lot to Bill, and he'll stand by it all his life. Steadfast in his convictions, perhaps even a little stubborn, but irresistibly likeable, he rates the best of luck down a long, successful Naval career."
The Navy Directories of 1940 and 1941 list him as an ensign in the Southard, then a destroyer converted to a minesweeper. The sources examined here do not say where he was on 7 December 1941 or what his duties were between then and 1945. The Register of Commissioned Officers for 1944 lists him as a lieutenant commander.
By the summer of 1945 the Heermann had been at war for nearly two years. She was commissioned on 6 July 1943, and under Commander Amos T. Hathaway she took part, on 25 October 1944, in the fight off Samar against a Japanese force of battleships, cruisers and destroyers, which the Navy's history and the ship's own war history describe; the unit later received the Presidential Unit Citation, and Hathaway the Navy Cross. In 1945 she screened the fast carriers off Japan and Okinawa, sank a small enemy vessel, helped in the hunt that sank the submarine I-56 and, on 15 August, shot down what the crew believed was one of the last Japanese aircraft of the war.
Yarnall took command on 19 August, as the ship's list of commanding officers in the Navy's history records. According to the war history, the ship did not go into Tokyo with the first group but was "sent down to the south of Japan to act as a radio beacon to guide all the Army transport planes that were flying in to Japan with the first troops and supplies." It was, the crew's narrative says, "boring duty at best." She entered Tokyo Bay on 16 September, after "seventy-eight continuous days" under way, according to the war history. On 1 October she sailed for Okinawa to embark passengers, and on 6 October for the west coast. On 19 October she steamed up the Columbia River to Vancouver, Washington, for the Navy Day celebrations, and, according to the war history, learned there that the ship had been awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for Samar. She stopped at Astoria, Oregon, on 29 October, anchored at San Pedro, California, on 1 November, unloaded her ammunition, and from 15 November lay for five months at a wharf in a pre-reserve overhaul. Lieutenant John L. McGehee Jr. took command on 8 May 1946, according to the Navy's history, and the ship was decommissioned on 12 June 1946. The ship's war history, dated 1946, lists him with the two earlier captains, under the date "August, 1945," but contains no individual account of him.
The Register of Commissioned Officers for 1950 lists a William K. Yarnall as a lieutenant commander. The sources examined here do not say what he did after the Heermann, whether he remained in the Navy, whether he married, or when he died. No obituary or burial record has been found.
His time in command is the epilogue of a famous ship's war: a few months of beacon duty, the run home, and the paperwork of laying her up. What survives of the man is a yearbook portrait of a thoughtful New Jersey midshipman who studied German on Sundays, and a line in a crew's own history.