The heroic end of a Naval ship named for a Delaware commander
Deep in the waters near the Isles of Scilly off the southwestern coast of England lay an American warship linked to southern Delaware. Divers recently exploring the 400-foot depths came upon the wrecked destroyer that had lain on the bottom for over a century.
During World War I, the ship, named for a Delaware naval commander, had been the scene of incredible self-sacrifice and heroism. The divers had discovered the wreckage of the USS Jacob Jones.
Born in 1768 in Smyrna, Delaware, Jacob’s mother died when he was an infant; and his father married Penelope Holt, the granddaughter of Ryves Holt of Lewes.
When his father passed away, Penelope raised Jacob in Lewes, where he attended the Lewes Academy, located where the Zwanendael Museum now stands.
After he completed his elementary education, Jones pursued a number of different occupations; but after his wife died, Jones, who was 31 years old, joined the Navy as a midshipman.
The Delaware native’s naval career was long and illustrious. He served in the Quasi War with France, the war against the Algerian pirates, and the War of 1812 against the British.
In October 1812, Jones commanded the 18-gun sloop Wasp, when he captured the British brig, Frolic, off the Delaware coast. The victory was the high point of his career as a fighting man, but he continued to serve in the Navy for almost for four more decades until his death in 1850.
During his lengthy service, Jones built a reputation of courage and professionalism that made him an inspiration for naval officers to follow.
After World War I began in Europe in 1914, the Navy named one of its newly-built destroyers after the Delaware commander. When the United States entered the war in 1917, the USS Jacob Jones was dispatched to European waters.
The destroyer, under the command of Captain David Bagley, was escorting a convoy of ships southwest of England. Around four o’clock in the afternoon on Dec. 6, 1917, the destroyer was spotted by a German submarine, which launched a torpedo toward the Jacob Jones.
The torpedo hit the American warship about three feet below the water line near the fuel oil tank. The deck over the fuel oil tank was blown off, and three large compartments were immediately flooded. As the aft end of the destroyer quickly flooded, and veteran sailors knew that the ship was doomed.
Captain Bagley ordered the ship abandoned, and several sailors made a desperate attempt to launch rafts and lifeboats. After the crew went over the side into the cold Atlantic waters, the Jacob Jones slid beneath the waves.
As the destroyer went down, the ship’s depth charges began to explode, killing many sailors in the water. So many men had pulled themselves aboard some of the life rafts, that some of these were in danger of capsizing.
As night began to fall, Lt. (j.g.) Stanton F. Kalk remained in the water as he shifted sailors from overcrowded rafts to others with more room. Despite the numbing cold water, Kraft continued to swim from raft to raft until the men were evenly distributed and all the rafts were seaworthy.
Some of the survivors were picked up that night, and others were rescued the next day. Out of crew of 110 men, 66 Americans had died, including Lt. Stanton Kalk, who was awarded the Navy Distinguished Service Medal for “extraordinary heroism in sacrificing himself by giving up his place on a life raft to make room for others, as a result of which splendid self-sacrifice, he lost his life.”
The recently-discovered battle-torn wreckage of the USS Jacob Jones is a testament of the violence that accompanied the ship’s sinking and a reminder of the extraordinary heroism of Lt. Stanton Kalk.
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Principal sources
Stephen Smith, “Divers say they found wreckage of the first U. S. Navy destroyer ever sunk by enemy fire” CBS News, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uss-jacob-jones-shipwreck-found-world-war-i-1917-england/
J. Worth Estes, “Commodore Jacob Jones: A Doctor Goes to Sea,” Delaware History, Vol. XXIV #2, Fall-Winter, 1990, pp. 109-111.
Admiral Worth Bagley, “Torpedoed in the Celtic Sea,” Naval History, May/June, 1997, pp. 36-40.
The New York Times, Jan. 12, 1918.
U.S. Naval Academy Virtual Memorial Hall, STANTON F. KALK, LTJG, USN https://usnamemorialhall.org/index.php/STANTON_F._KALK,_LTJG,_USN
This article originally appeared on Salisbury Daily Times: The heroic end of a Naval ship named for a Delaware commander
