Tell me what were their names, tell me what were their names,
Did you have a friend on the good Reuben James?
—Woody Guthrie, 1941

Remember the 'Reuben James'
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
September 2006

When tragedy or atrocity strikes, particularly to military personnel, politicians and media have an almost uniform response: Their names shall never be forgotten, we’re told, and their sacrifice shall not have been in vain.

The reality is somewhat different. Yesterday’s heroes are yesterday’s news. They feed the worms, or the fishes, while we move our attention to the next crisis our leaders proclaim we shall never forget.

So it was on All Hallow’s Eve, 1941. On 11 September 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had ordered the U.S. Navy to open fire on any vessel threatening American shipping or ships under U.S. Navy escort. A week earlier, the American destroyer Greer had been attacked by a German submarine, and responded with depth charges. It was the first hostile action between German and American forces in the Second World War, and it infuriated the president. “When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike,” he told the nation in a radio broadcast, “you do not wait until he has struck you before you crush him.”

A view held by many Americans in November 1941.

Not all Americans agreed. Charles Lindbergh fired back in a broadcast response that the United States must not fight a war for the sake of the world’s Jews. Roosevelt, he implied, was acting under Jewish influence and against American interests. “A few farsighted Jewish people realize this and stand opposed to intervention,” the famous aviator said. “But the majority still do not. . . . We cannot blame them for looking out for what they believe to be their own interests, but we must also look out for ours. We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to destruction.”

On 31 October, five American destroyers were escorting the east-bound Convoy HX-156 of 44 ships south of Iceland. They’d left Argentia, Newfoundland, eight days earlier. As they closed on the “switchover point” south of Iceland where a British escort group would take over the duty, an alert came that a German submarine wolfpack lurked nearby. Cdr. Heywood L. Edwards moved his destroyer between an ammunition ship and the U-boats’ supposed approach vector.

Reuben James in the Hudson River, April 1939.

Reuben James was a Clemson-class destroyer, laid down in 1919 and named for the naval hero Reuben James. James leaped in front of his commander, Stephen Decatur, during the storming of the captured frigate Philadelphia in 1804 and took a sword swipe to the head meant for Decatur. His namesake would make a similar sacrifice, but unlike James, the ship would not survive.

The destroyer commissioned in 1920 and served in the Caribbean, Mediterranean and Atlantic in the 1920s and 1930s. She was one of the hundreds of “four stack” destroyers built for the First World War, with high speed (35 knots when new) and a heavy torpedo armament (12 tubes). At 1,300 tons and 310 feet long, they were big, modern boats for their time with good endurance. Reuben James spent five years with the Pacific Fleet starting in 1934, but when war broke out in Europe she returned to the Atlantic for service with the Neutrality Patrol. Though new destroyers were joining the fleet, Reuben James and many of her sisters were still considered front-line units.

In March 1941 she began escorting convoys in the western Atlantic, handing over her charges to British escort groups at a designated mid-ocean meeting point. It was this mission that brought Reuben James and Convoy HX-156 together. The trip had been uneventful, but that would soon change.

At 0525 on 31 October, Kapitän-Leutnant Erich Topp of U-552, well aware of the warship’s nationality, fired two torpedoes at the American destroyer. One of them struck her portside forward. The forward magazine exploded, and the destroyer’s bow section broke away and sank immediately. The remainder of the ship stayed afloat for about five minutes. One hundred and fifteen American sailors, including Edwards and all of his officers, died with their ship. The remaining American destroyers rescued 45 survivors.

“Whether the country knows it or not,” raged Adm. Harold R. Stark, Chief of Naval Operations, “we are at war.” Roosevelt, stung by public support for Lindbergh’s craven cowardice, merely asked that the Neutrality Act be repealed, but even so could not overcome Republican opposition. Only some fairly mild measures could get through Congress. By a 50-37 vote the U.S. Senate allowed U.S. Navy gun crews aboard American merchant ships, and allowed such ships to call at British ports. Woody Guthrie wrote his ballad, but public outrage was muted.

Less than six weeks later, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor provided a provocation that even Lindbergh and his followers could not ignore. The United States declared war on Japan, and Germany eased Roosevelt’s political problems by declaring war on the United States. German submarines ravaged American shipping, as when Topp and U-552 spotted the coastal steamer David H. Atwater off Chincoteague, Virginia on 2 April 1942. Without warning, the submarine opened fire on the tramp. As the crew scrambled for the lifeboats, Topp’s gunners turned their machine guns on the crowded small craft. Twenty-four of the 27 sailors aboard were killed.

Topp would rise to admiral in the post-war West German Bundesmarine and become a minor celebrity in the decades following the war, writing his memoirs and meeting with U-boat buffs. A quick Internet search can even find pictures of smiling American enthusiasts posing with him. Topp finally died on 26 December 2005.

I used to do quite a lot of work on computer wargames; the money was good and the projects interesting. While working on a script for a submarine game several years ago, the publisher was sold to new ownership who happily announced that they’d added Erich Topp to the project team as “historical consultant.” I don’t recall exactly what I said, and I’m not especially proud of it as it included liberal use of English and German obscenities and with twin infants I really needed the job. But I haven’t worked on any of the company's games since.

Because someone should remember their names.