BROWN COUNTY FALLEN: Navy machinist from Brown County dies after ship struck by German torpedo

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Before the United States entered World War II and despite the preponderance of isolationist leanings across the country, congress passed the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 authorizing a draft.

This was the first peacetime draft in U. S. history. By October 1940, all men between the ages of 21 and 35 were required to register with their local draft board.

Peacetime ended on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941 — as did the isolationist majority. Thousands of young Americans, in true patriotic fervor, lined up to enlist.

For some, January came and the realization that the draft summons would soon be forthcoming and perhaps it would be best to pick the service of your choice rather than have “Uncle Sam” do the choosing.

James Stringer chose the Navy. James was 29 and unmarried.

Not a native Hoosier, he had been born in Kentucky. The family, which would eventually include James’ seven siblings, moved to Indiana.

James would graduate from Dugger High School and the family’s next move was to Brown County, where James’ father, John, got work as a blacksmith.

As the Great Depression lessened in the late 1930s both James and his father secured jobs with the Reeves Pulley Company in Columbus. This is where James was working when the war came to America.

Navy enlistees from the Midwest reported to the Great Lakes Naval Training facility, north of Chicago. With his mechanical background skills James was trained as a motor machinist mate.

Upon his completion of training he was assigned to the U.S.S. Skill.

The Skill had been laid down in November 1941 by the American Ship Building Company of Cleveland, OH with a launching date of June 22, 1942, and officially placed into service on Nov. 17 of that year. She immediately headed for troubled waters.

The Skill was a minesweeper. In Navy lexicon the three principal warship classes were: destroyers, the larger cruisers, and the largest, battleships and aircraft carriers.

A minesweeper was somewhat smaller than a destroyer but from a distance might be identified as one. This similarity would figure in the Skill’s ultimate fate.

Minesweepers were vital to every naval invasion operation of the war. In the Mediterranean, the English Channel and the myriad island invasions of the Pacific Theatre they were often the first ships on the scene to collect and destroy the thousands of explosive mines deployed by the Axis, many of which were tethered by cable to the ocean floor.

After a brief shakedown cruise — with James aboard — the Skill, would arrive in the Mediterranean shortly after Operation Torch, the invasion of French Morocco, had commenced.

Her duties included sweeping mines and other mine-warfare countermeasures along the North African coast.

The action in North Africa would continue through the winter and most of the spring of 1943 before the Allies forced the Italian forces to surrender and had sent the Germans and General Rommel scurrying back to Europe.

Next up for the Allies was Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily.

The Skill was now well versed in its minesweeping duties and, while serving in the Sicily campaign, was involved in several events that are documented in its history.

The U.S.S. Staff, another minesweeper, was damaged on July 15, 1943, by a mine and the Skill was called into the minefield and successfully towed the Staff to safety.

Another documented incident involved the U.S.S. Mayrant, a destroyer, that had been bombed by a German bomber off Palermo on July 26.

Once again, the Skill responded to the distress call and was able to tow the Mayrant to safety.

Less than a week later on Aug. 1, it was the Skill that was targeted and hit by a German bomber, but she remained in service.

James, being a machinist mate, no doubt was heavily involved in the repairs.

Sicily was successfully secured by the middle of August and the Skill was then made ready to carry out its duties of minesweeping off the coast of mainland Italy leading up to the invasion at Salerno, codenamed Operation Avalanche, which took place on Sept. 9.

It was during this invasion that on Sept. 11 fellow Brown Countian Herman Knose was killed on the Salerno beach.

With the Allied forces ashore and the surrounding seas pretty much cleared of mines, the Skill’s duties changed over to escort duties leading the supply convoys into shore to deposit their supplies and reserve troops.

Mines of course were just one of the dangers facing the Allied navies. German artillery secure in the hills to the east of Salerno were a constant threat to the landings.

But the biggest threat was always the German submarines.

And it was on Sept. 26 just before noon that the Skill’s seaman on watch, scanning the surrounding surface, picked up that most ominous of all sights in wartime for a ship at sea, the wake of an incoming torpedo!

It struck the forward section of the Skill where the ship’s magazine of stored ammunition was housed. She was blown in half.

The forward section immediately capsized. The after half caught fire and was engulfed in flames.

Ten minutes later it exploded and slipped beneath the waves.

There were 32 members of the crew rescued, but 72 perished. Among those was James Stringer.

Back home, overcome with grief, James’ father upon learning of his son’s fate suffered a heart attack and passed away.

Besides his mother James was survived by his mother, two brothers Johnny and Bobby and five sisters: Betty at home, Mrs. C. A. Brummett of Columbus, Mrs. Josephine Byers, Mrs. Edith Hall, and Mrs. Emma Allender, all of Indianapolis.

Jim Watkins is a Brown County Historical Society member who wrote “The Fallen,” a memorial document about young men from Brown County who never returned home from World War II. Watkins was a public school teacher for 42 years and has always been interested in learning about WWII. He can be reached at [email protected].

Revisiting history

In Freedom Park, Omaha, Nebraska there is preserved the only existing example of a WWII-era minesweeper, the U.S.S. Hazard.

If you go to YouTube you can see the inner workings of such a ship and the conditions under which James Stringer served his country in “Inside the Last Minesweeper of WWII | History Traveler episode 76.”

Jim Watkins is a Brown County Historical Society member who wrote “The Fallen,” a memorial document about young men from Brown County who never returned home from World War II. Watkins was a public school teacher for 42 years and has always been interested in learning about WWII. He can be reached at [email protected].

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