World War II Honoree

John M. Atherton II

Branch of Service

U.S. Navy

Hometown

Louisville, Kentucky

Honored By

Ms. Cornelia A. Serpell

Enlisted in Navy after graduation from Harvard, 1940. Training cruise July 15, 1940 to August 9, 1940 on the battleship USS Wyoming AG-17, followed by several months at Midshipmen's School at Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois. Following commission as an officer, December 1940, he was assigned to the billet of Communication Officer on the USS Meredith DD-434, a destroyer which was being built in Boston. After a shakedown cruise to the Bahamas, the USS Meredith had bitter winter duty guarding convoys crossing the North Atlantic to Russian ports. After Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the USS Meredith was returned to Boston for refitting with radar and was sent through the Panama Canal to join the war in the Pacific, arriving in spring 1942. October 1942, the USS Meredith was escorting a tug towing barges of aviation gasoline to besieged Guadalcanal Island in the Solomon Islands when it was attacked by dozens of Japanese planes and sank in 15 minutes. He survived the sinking and was in one of the overcrowded rafts. The first night he was badly wounded by a shark and died. He was two months past age 23. He received numerous medals, including the Purple Heart. In 1943, a destroyer escort, USS Atherton DE-169 was named for him and was launched from Kearny, New Jersey. The USS Atherton had the distinction of sinking the last German U-boat of the war off Block Island, Rhode Island.