Initially commissioned in 1916, the USS Jacob Jones was a Tucker-class destroyer sent overseas to assist during World War I. Before its sinking, the USS Jacob Jones “rescued survivors from several shipwrecks; their biggest mission involved recovering 305 survivors of the British cruiser Orama on Oct. 19, 1917, after it was hit by a German torpedo.” [iii] [v]

Initially, the USS Jacob Jones had been patrolling in the Atlantic off the Virginia Coast. Departing May 7 for Europe, the destroyer was equipped with four 102mm/50-caliber guns and eight 533mm torpedo tubes. The top speed she could reach was 30.32 knots, the equivalent of roughly 35 miles per hour. The ship’s crew consisted of “five Wardroom Officers, nine Chief Petty Officers, and 87 men.” [iv]

USS Jacob Jones DD-61Photo byU.S. Navy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The USS Jacob Jones is most known for her numerous rescue operations throughout 1917. This included “escorting supply convoys through submarine-infested waters.”

For example, in mid-July 1917, she was escorting the British steamship Dafila when the USS Jacob Jones spotted a periscope. Unfortunately, the Dafila steamship was “torpedoed before an attack on the submarine could be launched.” The USS Jones took 235 survivors on board from the attacked Dafila. [vi]

In Dec. 1917, while the USS Jacob Jones was independently steaming “in the vicinity of the Isles of Scilly, her watch sighted a torpedo wake about a thousand yards distant.” The destroyer attempted to maneuver to escape; however, the “high-speed torpedo struck her starboard side, rupturing her fuel oil tank.” [vii]

Picture of a WW2 era U.S. submarine-launched torpedoPhoto byPublic domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Although the crew attempted to save the ship, the depth charges exploded. Depth charges are anti-submarine warfare weapons used “to attack submerged submarines.”

First developed in World War I to use against German submarines, depth charges “consisted of a canister filled with explosives that was rolled or dropped off the stern of a ship in the presumed vicinity of the submerged submarine.” [viii]

USS Jacob Jones sinking after being torpedoed.Photo bySmithsonian Institution Photograph

The video below illustrates a demonstration of a Navy depth charge.

Following the explosion of the ship’s depth charges, the ship’s commander ordered the ship abandoned. 38 men survived, while 64 remained on board when the vessel sank 8 minutes after being torpedoed. Those who survived “huddled together on rafts and boats in frigid Atlantic waters,” with two crewmembers being taken captive by German Captain Hans Rose. [ix]

Hans “radioed the American base at Queenstown the approximate location and drift” of the remaining survivors in a rarely seen humanitarian gesture. Rescue operations to pick up the USS Jacob Jones’ survivors were conducted by the British liner Catalina and were completed by the Insolent. [x]

Survivors of USS Jacob Jones following their Dec. rescue.Photo byRoads to the Great War

References

[i] Cally Brooks, World War 1 mystery SOLVED: First US Navy ship sunk by Germany finally found after 105yrs, (Aug. 18, 2022)

[ii] Nicholas Slayton, The first US destroyer sunk by enemy fire has been found after 105 years, (Aug. 17, 2022)

[iii] Id.

[iv] Naval History and Heritage Command, USS Jacob Jones (DD-61) Wreck Site (1917), (2022)

[v] Michael Hanlon, The Loss of USS Jacob Jones, (Jul. 16, 2017)

[vi] Id.

[vii] Id.

[viii] Britannica, Depth Charge, (2022)

[ix] Michael Hanlon, The Loss of USS Jacob Jones, (Jul. 16, 2017)

[x] Id.