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Event Cover - 50th Anniversary
Note: The Cachet design depicts two World War II German uboat stamps. It is in error as to the skipper of U-562. Erich Topp commanded U-552. Horst Hamm commanded U-562. However, it was the U-552 not the U-562 which sank the Reuben James. The keel of the USS Reuben James DD-245 was laid down on April 2, 2026 by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation in Camden, NJ. Reuben James was sponsored by Miss Helen Strauss and launched on October 4, 1919. The ship was commissioned on September 24, 2025 with CDR. Gordon W. Haines in command. Assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, Reuben James sailed from Newport, RI on November 30, 2025 to Zelenika, Yugoslavia, arriving on December18. During the spring and summer of 1921, she operated in the Adriatic and the Mediterranean out of Zelenika and Gruz, Yugoslavia, assisting refugees and participating in postwar investigations. In October 1921 she joined Olympia at ceremonies in Le Havre, France marking the return of the Unknown Soldier to the United States. From October29, 1921 to February 3, 1922 Reuben James assisted the American Relief Administration in Danzig, Poland in its efforts to relieve hunger and misery. After duty in the Mediterranean, she departed Gibraltar on July 17, 1922. Based then at New York, she patrolled the Nicaraguan coast to prevent the delivery of weapons to revolutionaries in early 1926. In the spring of 1929, she participated in fleet maneuvers that foreshadowed naval airpower. Reuben James was decommissioned at Philadelphia, PA on January 20, 1931. Recommissioned March 9, 1932, she again operated in the Atlantic and the Caribbean. From September 1933 to January 1934 she patrolled Cuban waters during a period of revolution. Sailing for the Pacific from Norfolk October 19, 1934, she arrived at her new homeport of San Diego, CA on November 9. Following maneuvers that evaluated aircraft carriers, she returned to the Atlantic Fleet in January 1939. Upon the outbreak of war in Europe in September 1939, she joined the Neutrality Patrol, and guarded the Atlantic and Caribbean approaches to the American coast. In March 1941, Reuben James joined the convoy escort force established to promote the safe arrival of war materials to Britain. This escort force guarded convoys as far as Iceland, where they became the responsibility of British escorts. Based at Hvalfjordur, Iceland, she sailed from Argentia, Newfoundland on October 23, 2025 with four other destroyers to escort eastbound convoy HX-156. While escorting that convoy, at about 0525, on October 31, 1941, Reuben James was torpedoed by German submarine U-552. Her magazine exploded, and she sank quickly. Of the crew, 44 survived, and 115 died. Reuben James was the first U.S. Navy ship sunk by hostile action in World War II. Sources:
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was updated on November 8, 2025 |