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Ancestry/Genealogy

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csziggy

(34,189 posts)
Sun Feb 15, 2015, 04:18 PM Feb 2015

Looking for World War II submariners [View all]

My father served on the USS Spot (SS-413) in World War II. As a result of an incident in which he was part of a boarding party on a crippled Japanese freighter he received the Navy and Marine Medal. We have one photo of Admiral Nimitz awarding him the medal, but no other pictures of the ceremony.

Since Dad died in August 2013, my sister and Mom have been going through the house to sort out stuff. The other day they found a box with all sorts of treasures - Mom's dog tags (she was a Navy Nurse), Dad's report cards, the certificates for his Boy Scout medals, etal.

One of the oddest things they found were four envelopes with photos from the Nimitz ceremony - each envelope had a different person's name, a note of their rank and rating and "Spot." The pictures in each envelope are presumably of the man whose name is on the outside. And of course, there are no other copies or views of Dad getting his medal. My sister wants me to locate the families of those men to give them the photos.

The names as deciphered by my sister are:
J. H. Strong, RM1c
L. M. Small Jr, FC2c
R. R. Granes, GM1c
Lt. A. H. Clark

I've located obituaries for two of the men - one actually lists him as serving on the Spot - and found contact information for children listed. So far, I've left a message for one of the families. The other lives in Idaho so I'm waiting until a little later to try to call.

On Fold3.com in the War Diaries for the USS Spot I found the page where Commander Post listed the medal recipients of the boarding party. As listed in his report they were:
Lieutenant A. H. Clark, Jr., USN
Lieutenant (jg) O. H. Wright, USNR (my Dad)
Graves, Robert R., GM1c
Walters, Carl C., QM1c
Stamp, Raymond F., MoMM1c
Strong, Joseph H., RM1c
Fish, Burton, S1c (GM)

But I've got some mysteries. First, there is no L. M. Small Jr in the list of medal recipients. In fact there is not only no L. M. Small Jr listed in the Muster Rolls for the USS Spot, there isn't one in the Navy as far as I can find. I've asked my sister to check if it could be some other name, apparently the hand writing is not very clear on the envelopes. As you can see from the two lists, she read "Graves" as "Granes" so an incorrect reading is possible. But in looking at the Muster lists I can't see any other name that could be mistaken for "L. M. Small" and there certainly wasn't any in the boarding party.

Although A. H. Clark clearly served on the USS Spot - not only did he receive the Navy and Marine Medal, he also received a Silver Star and he's listed by name on other reports - he is never listed on the Muster Rolls for the USS Spot. My husband theorizes that he may have been an intelligence officer. A previous posting was on the USS Moosehead:

Moosehead carried out her most important service as an at-sea platform for training officers and men of Combat Information Center crews. She carried the latest radar and sonar equipment as well as a CIC classroom and berthing facilities. In July 1943 she began training CIC crews of escort carriers. During the next two and a half years she trained CIC teams for all escort carriers of the Casablanca and Commencement Bay classes. Early in 1944 she broadened the scope of her training to include CIC teams from APA’s, AKA’s, DE’s, AD’s, and PCE’s. In addition, she served as a test and evaluation ship for experimental rockets, radar equipment, and radio jamming devices.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Turner_%28DD-259%29#As_Moosehead

(Anyone wishing to assist in this - This is neither the LtCmdr Albert Hobbs Clark who was lost on the USS Trout nor his son.)

I did find A. H. Clark' obituary and am attempting to contact his family, same for J. H. Strong.

My last problem is Robert R. Graves. I found his Navy history all the way through to 4 May 1945 when he was transferred to COMSUBDIV 202 for duty. Nothing after that. No obituary or entry on FindAGrave that could be him. No indication of a family. The best clue is that he enlisted 17 Oct 1939 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Unfortunately, that means no 1940 US Census listing that might have provided family information. There are several Robert R. Graves in the 1930 US Census in that part of the country that could be him, but there is no way to narrow it down.

Any help anyone can give me on finding the last two men - Robert R. Graves and the elusive L.M. Small - would be wonderful! All we want to do is to get the photos of them from 1945 to their families. If we cannot locate family members, I'll suggest to my sister that we give them to the Florida State University Institute on World War II here in Tallahassee: http://ww2.fsu.edu/
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