22 January, 1913
CHESTER BENNETT
McKinney - Fireman 2^nd Class, US Navy
Drown while serving aboard ship at Mare Island, California.

7 December, 1941
USS ARIZONA
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
In the opening minutes of World War II, Collin County would lose four brave men, sailors onboard the USS Arizona.

Sunday morning - USS Arizona moored at "Battleship Row" when Japanese aircraft attacked. Japanese pilot's view.

Fifteen minutes into the attack, a Japanese high-level bomber dropped a 1,760-pound naval projectile that had been specially converted. The bomb penetrated the forecastle, detonating the forward ammunition magazines.

The massive explosion that followed lifted the 33,000-ton vessel out of the water totally destroying the ship's forward hull and superstructure.

The Arizona sank in nine minutes, with a loss of 1177 Sailors and Marines, including four Sailors from Collin County, Texas.

9 Aug. 1942
USS QUINCY

RICHARD L. BOLTON
Lebanon - Seaman 2^nd Class, US Navy

The USS Quincy (CA-39), a New Orleans Class heavy cruiser, arrived in the South Pacific  in July of 1942 along with a large contingent of warships gathering for the invasion of Guadalcanal. In preparation for the invasion by US Marines, the Quincy's guns destroyed several Japanese military installations, an oil depo at Laguna Point, and later provided close fire support for the Marines during the landing. 
A couple of weeks later, the Quincy, while on patrol during the Battle of Savo Island, was attacked in the early morning hours by a large Japanese naval force. The Quincy sustained many direct hits, lost all its guns, and sank in an area known as Ironbottom Sound, called that because of the large number of Japanese and American warships that had gone down there. Along with the ship’s captain, Richard Bolton was among the 370 Sailors who went down with the ship that night.

While on patrol in the area known as Ironbottom Sound just north of Guadalcanal in the early hours of 9 August, 1942, Quincy was attacked by a large Japanese naval force during the Battle of Savo Island and sustained many direct hits, which knocked out all of her guns.

At two o'clock in the morning, incoming shells killed or wounded almost all of Quincy’s bridge crew, including the captain. At 02:16, the cruiser was hit by a torpedo from Aoba, and the ship's remaining guns were silenced. Quincy’s assistant gunnery officer, sent to the bridge to ask for instructions, reported on what he found: "When I reached the bridge level, I found it a shambles of dead bodies with only three or four people still standing. In the Pilot House itself the only person standing was the signalman at the wheel who was vainly endeavoring to check the ship's swing to starboard to bring her to port. On questioning him I found out that the Captain, who at that time was laying near the wheel, had instructed him to beach the ship and he was trying to head for Savo Island, distant some four miles on the port quarter. I stepped to the port side of the Pilot House, and looked out to find the island and noted that the ship was heeling rapidly to port, sinking by the bow. At that instant the Captain straightened up and fell back, apparently dead, without having uttered any sound other than a moan."

Memoirs of USS Quincy Veteran:

 

9 August, 1942
USS Jarvis (DD-393), 1937-1942

BILLY BAIN HONAKER
Farmersville - Pharmacist Mate 1^st Class, US Navy

Billy Honaker served as a Corpsman aboard the USS JARVIS, a 1500-ton Bagley class destroyer. Based in Hawaii, on the morning of 7 December, 1941, the Jarvis was one of many ships tied up at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese launched their attack. Able to cast off and fight back, the Jarvis crew brought down four enemy planes with her 5-inch guns. All hands survived the Battle of Pearl Harbor. 
Eight months later, during the invasion of Guadalcanal, the Jarvis had just put a contingent of US Marines ashore when she was hit by a torpedo dropped by a Japanese plane. Badly damaged, with a 50-foot gash in her side, little speed, no radio communications, and few operative guns, she set sail to Australia for repairs. On the night of 9 August, 1942, when she passed the coast of Savo Island, the Japanese mistook Jarvis for an escaping cruiser and dispatched 31 planes from Rabaul to search out and destroy her. Once discovered, the determined, but badly damaged destroyer was no match for bombers raking the ship with bullets and torpedoes. According to Japanese records, Jarvis split and sank at one o'clock in the afternoon. All 233 hands went down with the ship, including Billy Honaker.

USS JARVIS

Eyewitness accounts of the Sinking of USS Helena 

WOODROW H. ALLEN
USS Hornet
  
McKinney - Machinist 1^st Class - US Navy
Woodrow Allen survived five major battles at sea in the Pacific including the sinking of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet  
in the South Pacific where he was decorated for bravery.  Woodrow was killed almost a year later in an explosion
aboard another ship near New Georgia Island in the Pacific on 4 Sept. 1943.

20 October, 1943
GULFBELLE
NIMROD S. SHIPP

Collin County - Cook First Class, Merchant Marines

NIMROD SHIPP, with the rank of  Cook 1^st Class in the Merchant Marines, was serving on the oil tanker Gulfbelle, owned by the Gulf Oil Corporation and based at Beaumont, Texas, the night she collided with another oil tanker, the GulfLand, off Lake Worth Inlet near Palm Beach, Florida. Due to the wartime blackout rules, both ships were running without lights. The GulfLand was sailing from Beaumont, Texas to Jacksonville, Florida, with a full cargo of aviation gasoline. The bow of the Gulfbelle rammed the port bow of the GulfLand, causing fire and explosions as well as the water around the ships to be ablaze with burning airplane fuel. Out of a total of 73 men onboard the Gulfbelle, 48 crew and 25 Navy armed guards, only 21 survived. Nimrod Shipp was one of those who went down with the ship.

Panama City News-Herald - 24 October, 1943
88 DIE IN FIRE -- EXPLOSION WHEN TANKERS COLLIDE.
ONLY 28 SURVIVORS OF TRAGEDY OFF FLORIDA COAST.

Palm Beach, Fla., Oct. 23 -- (AP) -- Two blacked-out tankers collided off the Florida Coast in the darkness Wednesday night and 88 men perished in the flames which spread from the explosion of one of the vessels laden with thousands of gallons of aviation gasoline.
The Navy permitted announcement of the disaster today after investigating salvage possibilities. Some Leaped Overboard.  Twenty-eight merchant crewmen and members of Navy gun crews were saved, most of them leaping overboard as the flames whipped over the decks and spread out over the water.
Persons ashore heard the explosion and saw the towering flames and gave the alarm which sent Coast Guard craft racing to the scene.
One of the ships, northbound and riding low in the water with the weight of the gasoline, had 43 crewmen aboard, including seven naval gunners, and only seven men survived. The other tanker, southbound in ballast, was manned by a crew of 73, including 25 gunners, and 21 reached safety.
Most of those on deck perished instantly.
CHRISTOPHER P. FINLEY, 28, of Miami, third assistant engineer aboard the empty tanker, as at his post at the time of the crash, as 10:50 p.m.
All Stayed At Posts.  "I knew something terrible had happened," he declared, "but every hand in the engine room stayed at his post, and that saved a lot of lives. Two explosions followed immediately. I cut off the engines and rushed topside. Forward and amidships were a holocaust. The forward magazines and gun turrets were exploding. I knew the aft magazines would go any minute. I jumped into the sea off the fantail."
Seaman JOSEPH S. O'BRIEN, of Indianapolis, member of a Navy gun crew aboard a Northbound tanker gave this account of the disaster:
"I was on watch about 10:50 p.m. as we rode Northward along the Gulf Stream. Suddenly I spotted another ship bearing down from the North. It appeared to be about 75 yards away. It looked as if it were going to pass us, but as the ship approached I saw it was going to be close."
"I turned and started for a telephone to report to the forward bridge, shouting as I ran to WALTER ATKINSON of Miami, another member of the gun crew.  Before I got to the telephone, there was a crash.  A terrific explosion followed, and I was blown about 10 feet across the deck. Regaining my feet, I raced through flames and jumped overboard off the stern. I guess I was the first one off the boat.  I swam as fast as I could for awhile, and thought I was safe. Then I stopped to look back.  Waves of flame were coming toward me on the water, and they almost caught me. Burning gasoline covered a huge area.  I could hear a lot of screaming and yelling from the direction of both ships and I know a lot of the boys were trapped. It was awful.  After I swam away from the flames I floated around until I found a lifeboat upside down. I crawled up on it and sat there until I was picked up by the Coast Guard."
The flaming hulls floated slowly Northward in the Gulf Stream. The empty, less seriously damaged, tanker ran aground. Salvage crews floated the vessel and towed it to port, with the dead still aboard. The Navy said it will be repaired, and will carry war goods again.
The laden tanker drifted almost 20 miles, burning so fiercely that it could not be approached. It struck bottom almost atop the hulk of a freighter sunk by enemy subs early in the war.  No one yet has boarded the ship but men on rescue craft reported they could see piles of burned bodies.
The masters of both ships and all except one of the Navy commissioned officers assigned to the gun crews, were lost, the Navy reported.
Second Assistant Engineer EDWARD HETHINGTON, 28, of Charleston, aboard the empty tanker, said all lifeboats were burned and fell into the sea.  Emerging from the engine room, he related, "we had to run over a mass of charred bodies which almost blocked the port companionway."

Today the bow section of the GulfLand rests in 35 feet of water close to where she went down only a mile or so offshore,
with a maximum depth in the wash out of 40 feet. This is one of the best shipwreck dives in the Ft. Pierce, Florida area.

17 November, 1943
USS McKean - (DD-90/APD-5)  1918-1943
DOYLE JAMES McFARLING

Collin County - US Navy

Doyle McFarling, a Collin County Sailor in the US Navy, served on board the USS McKean, a Wickes class destroyer built in San Francisco in 1918. In mid November, 1943, McKean set sail for the island of Bougainville with 185 Marines onboard to be deployed on a beach there. As she approached Empress Augusta Bay she was attacked by an Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service 702 Kokutai Mitsubishi G4M torpedo plane, which launched a torpedo off the starboard quarter. McKean turned to avoid the deadly weapon, but at 0350 the torpedo struck the starboard side, exploding the after magazine and depth-charge spaces, rupturing fuel oil tanks. With approximately 57 torpedo planes in the battle, 17 of which were shot down, flaming oil engulfed McKean aft of the No. 1 stack. She lost all power and communications. Flaming oil, floating on the surface of the water, burned and killed men who were blown from the ship, or jumped overboard. At 3:55 a.m. Lieutenant Commander Ralph L. Ramsey gave the order to "Abandon Ship." At 4:00 she began to sink by the stern. Her forward magazine and oil tank exploded fifteen minutes later. The stacks disappeared beneath the surface 4:18 a.m. Doyle McFarling was among the 64 Sailors and 52 Marines who perished in the flaming inferno. The survivors were picked up by rescuing destroyers.

USS McKEAN christened 4 July 1918, San Francisco	The early days	On duty at Guadalcanal
At Mare Island Navy yard April 1943		Converted to a High-Speed Transport 1942

    

Eyewitness account of the sinking of the USS McKean by Maury Williams, USMC:

Navy Unit Commendation
THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY
WASHINGTON
    The Secretary of the Navy takes pleasure in commending the
UNITED STATES SHIP McKEAN
for participation in the following operations

The Guadalcanal Campaign — August 7 to September 5 1942;
The New Georgia–Rendova Group Occupation — June 30 to August 31, 1943;
The Treasury-Bougainville Operations — October 27 to November 17, 1943;
as set forth in the following
CITATION:

“For exceptionally meritorious service and heroism in action against enemy aircraft, surface forces and submarines. In the Solomon Islands Campaign, the U.S.S. McKEAN was employed to reinforce the beleaguered garrison and air forces in the Guadalcanal area. Time and again against overwhelming odds, this slightly armed ship completed many extremely hazardous missions, thus enabling our forces to hold on until more powerful reinforcements could be obtained. In the action off Cape Torokina on November 17, 1943 when mortally wounded by an enemy torpedo, the gallantry of her crew was outstanding. Her courageous determination and effort were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.”

All personnel attached to and serving on board the U.S.S. McKEAN during one or more of the designated periods
are hereby authorized to wear the NAVY UNIT COMMENDATION Ribbon.

/s/ John L. Sullivan
Secretary of the Navy

CYREL D. MORELAND
19 - McKinney - Merchant Marines
Killed July 1944 in explosion aboard ship at Oakland, California.

24 October, 1944
ARISAN MARU
EDGAR M. MORRISON
Farmersville - Private, US Army

The HELL SHIP ARISAN MARU The term HELL SHIP refers to the ships used by the Imperial Japanese Navy to transport Allied prisoners of war out of the Philippines, Hong Kong and Singapore. The POWs were taken to Japan, Taiwan, Manchuria, or Korea to be used as forced labor.

Private MORRISON, EDGAR M. US Army, of Farmersville, was serving with K Company of the 31^st Infantry in the Philippine Islands when the Japanese attacked on 8 December, 1941. The overwhelming Japanese force quickly took Luzon and pushed the 31st Infantry onto the Bataan Peninsula. However, the peninsula had not been stocked with food and medical supplies and no help could come in from the outside after much of the Pacific fleet had been destroyed at Pearl Harbor, Guam and Wake Island. Despite starvation, disease, no supplies, obsolete weapons, and often inoperative ammunition, the peninsula's defenders fought the Japanese to a standstill for four months. When as a last resort the commanding officer announced that he would surrender the Bataan Defense Force, the 31st Infantry buried its colors to keep them out of enemy hands. Some of the 31st's survivors escaped to continue resisting, but most underwent brutal torture and humiliation on the Bataan Death March. Private Morrison survived the Death March and was one of the 1800 American servicemen crammed into the cargo holds of "Hell Ship" Arisan Maru. when sunk by an American submarine, the USS Shark, 24 Oct. 1944.
The Arisan Maru left Manila Bay on 11 October, 1944 and anchored off Palawan Island for over a week until it joined Convoy MATA-30 which sailed from Manila on 21 October. Two days later, on the 23rd, the Japanese convoy was spotted about 200 miles northwest of Luzon in the South China Sea by two packs of US submarines. The nine submarines launched an attack on the convoy. At about 5:30 p.m. on 24 October, the USS Shark sent three torpedoes into the Arisan Maru, unaware that the unmarked freighter carried all those Americans. The ship broke in two pieces and actually floated for a short while. Those who survived the explosions and were able to abandon ship attempted to climb aboard nearby Japanese vessels but were shot or knocked back into the water where most of them drowned. Out of the approximately 1800 Americans onboard, 1795 were killed, making the sinking of the Arisan Maru the worst naval disaster in the history of the United States. Two days later five of the survivors were rescued by a Chinese fishing junk. The Chinese helped them reach American Air Corps forces. The other survivors were recaptured by a Japanese destroyer and taken to Formosa.
The submariners may have never known that Shark torpedoes had killed so many fellow Americans; the USS Shark was sunk later that same day by a Japanese depth charge between Hainan and Bashi Channel, killing all hands.

Retreat to Bataan

25 Oct. 1944
USS Johnston

WILLIAM G. BURNETT
Collin County - Radioman 3rd Class, US Navy

William G. Burnett served as a radioman aboard the USS Johnston (DD-557), a Fletcher class destroyer, small by destroyer standards and known as a "Tin Can". On the morning of 25 October, 1944, in the Philippine Sea off the coast of Samar Island the Johnston led a valiant attack on a much larger Japanese naval force, in what has been described as a suicide mission. At 7:10 a.m. the USS JOHNSTON, with no orders, undertook a lone attack on the Japanese surface fleet. After taking numerous hits and expending most of her torpedoes and ammunition, at 9:30 a survivor said : "We were going dead in the water; even the Japanese couldn't miss us. They made a sort of running semi-circle around our ship, shooting at us like a bunch of Indians attacking a prairie schooner. Our lone engine and fire room was knocked out; we lost all power, and even the indomitable skipper knew we were finished. At 0945 he gave the saddest order a captain can give: 'Abandon Ship.'..."
At 10:10 she rolled over and began to sink. A Japanese destroyer came to within 1,000 yards and fired one last shot to make sure she sank. A survivor reported that the crew of the Japanese destroyer saluted her as she went down. Out of a crew of 327 men, 50 were killed by enemy action, 45 died on rafts from wounds, and 92, including the captain, were alive in the water after Johnston sank, but were never heard from again.  It is not know exactly how William Burnett died that day, but he was never heard from again. The crew was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for bravery and the captain was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Also sunk in the Battle of Samar were the USS Samuel B. Roberts and USS Hoel.

 
Commander Ernest E. Evans, from Pawnee, Oklahoma

"For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as commanding officer of the U.S.S. JOHNSTON in action against major units of the enemy Japanese fleet during the Battle off Samar on 25 October 1944. The first to lay a smokescreen and to open fire as an enemy task force, vastly superior in number, firepower and armor, rapidly approached. Commander Evans gallantly diverted the powerful blasts of hostile guns from the lightly armed and armored carriers under his protection, launching the first torpedo attack when the JOHNSTON came under straddling Japanese shellfire. Undaunted by damage sustained under the terrific volume of fire, he unhesitatingly joined others of his group to provide fire support during subsequent torpedo attacks against the Japanese and, outshooting and outmaneuvering the enemy as he consistently interposed his vessel between the hostile fleet units and our carriers despite the crippling loss of engine power and communications with steering aft, shifted command to the fantail, shouted steering orders through an open hatch to men turning the rudder by hand and battled furiously until the JOHNSTON, burning and shuddering from a mortal blow, lay dead in the water after 3 hours of fierce combat. Seriously wounded early in the engagement, Commander Evans, by his indomitable courage and brilliant professional skill, aided materially in turning back the enemy during a critical phase of the action. His valiant fighting spirit throughout this historic battle will venture as an inspiration to all who served with him."
/signed/ HARRY S. TRUMAN, President

10 DECEMBER, 1944
SS DAN BEARD

JOHNNY CARL ROGERS
Wylie, US Navy Signalman 2^nd Class
 

Johnny Rogers, of Wylie, served as a signalman with a 27-man US Navy security detail on the merchant ship SS Dan Bead. On 10 Dec, 1944, a radio telegram was intercepted from German Submarine U-1202, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Rolf Thomsen, that reported sinking four ships in a convoy.  However, the message was incorrect. Only the unescorted Dan Beard was hit.  The ship, a Steam Merchant, also known as a Liberty Ship, had left Barry, Wales, headed for Belfast, Northern Ireland, at 2:00 a.m. unescorted due to the fact that the Admiralty had reported the Irish Sea clear of U-boats and ordered the ship to sail alone. At 1:55 p.m., in rough seas off Strumble Head, North Wales, a single torpedo slammed into the Number-3 hold on the port side. A second torpedo struck the stern, which raised the ship out of the water, blew off the rudder and broke the propeller. The motion of the ship caused her to break in two at the Number-3 hold, where a plate had been welded over a crack in December 1943; this left the vessel in a weakened state. The after section sank immediately and the forepart drifted ashore and was wrecked. No SOS was sent because both antennas were destroyed. Her complement of eight officers, 32 men and 27 armed guards (the ship was armed with one 4-inch, one 3-inch, and eight 20mm guns) abandoned ship in four lifeboats. One of the boats swamped and another capsized in the 30-feet seas. Sixteen men in one boat landed at Pwll-Deri Bay, South Wales. Another boat made landfall with nine men. A coastal craft picked up 13 others from a raft. Johnny was among the three officers, 14 men and 12 armed guards who were lost at sea.

According to recent reports, Dan Beard now rests in the shallow waters of Pwll Deri Bay, off Strumble Head near Abercastle, Pembrokeshire, North Wales. Local divers report that she is "... well broken up and flattened by storms ... there is often a swell where she lies and as the depth is only 10 meters you can get moved around. The biggest part of this wreck is the bow section, which is upside down with the flukes of the four-ton anchor two meters off the sea bed. From the bow you can follow the anchor chain to the biggest pile of chain you have ever seen."

This is the only known photograph of the SS Dan Beard, owned by the Stockard Steamship Company, New York,; a locomotive being loaded aboard.	Survivors of the SS Dan Beard. Nine-and-a-half hours in the cold water.
This gun, from the American Liberty Ship, Dan Beard, was found by divers off the northern coast of Pembrokeshire. The gun is now on display in the tiny harbor village of Porthgain, by diver Matthew Blakiston.

Underwater footage of the wrecked Dan Beard

15 December, 1944
The HELL SHIP ORYOKU MARU
JACK KELLY
Collin County, Captain, USMC

The Oryoku Maru was a luxury liner before becoming a Hell Ship		Burning after being hit by US Navy planes. The small white dots are American POWs swimming for the shore.	The Oryoku Maru sinking off Olongapo, Luzon, Philippines, December 15, 1944.

Captain JACK KELLY was captured at Corregidor Island in the Philippines and held in Japanese Prisoner Camp #1 near Manila. On 15 December, 1944, Captain Kelly, after surviving the Bataan Death March, was one of 1619 prisoners packed aboard the Oryoku Maru. The ship left Manila on 13 December, destination Japan, but the unmarked ship was attacked by US Navy bombers from the USS Hornet and stood dead in the water off Olongopo Point in Subic Bay. The ship had to be abandoned and at least 250  men who weren’t killed in the bombing were either machine gunned by their Japanese captors or drown. The survivors were loaded onto another Japanese ship, the Enoura Maru, which took a direct hit killing over half of the 500 prisoners. Those survivors were taken aboard the Brazil Maru and transported to Moji, Japan.
The Voyage began on 13 December, 1944 in Manila, Philippines and ended on 30 January, 1945 in Moji, Japan. Of the original 1619 POW passengers 1187 were killed or died in route; 161 died shortly after arriving in Japan; The total number of dead Americans was 1348. Only 271 lived through captivity to be liberated in August 1945.   

The Oryoku Maru Story

BENNIE N. DAVIS
McKinney - Seaman 1^st Class, US  Navy,
Killed Jan. 2, 1945, in an accident onboard ship.
 

LEEROY J. POWELL
20 - McKinney - Fireman 2^nd Class, US Navy
Killed in action May 1945 at Bougainville in the Solomon Islands.

Naval battle near Bougainville in the Solomon Islands

W. H. STEELMAN JR.
Culleoka - US Navy
Killed in action in May 1945, when the destroyer on which he was serving was sunk off the coast of Okinawa. Three destroyers were sunk by Japanese Kamikaze planes in May during the Battle of Okinawa. Steelman could have served on either USS Morrison (dd-560),  USS Luce (dd-522), both sunk on 4 May, or USS Drexler (DD-741) which went down on 28 May.

Kamikaze warfare was prevalent in the Battle of Okinawa