Bertie County NcArchives Military Records.....Early, James Godsey 1945 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/nc/ncfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Gerald Thomas gerald_thomas00@comcast.net October 1, 2017, 4:28 pm DESTRUCTION OF THE USS EAGLE 56, APRIL 23, 1945 LIEUTENANT JAMES GODSEY EARLY, COMMANDER Monday morning, April 23, 1945, was clear and crisp at Portland, Maine as the submarine chaser, the USS Eagle 56, sailed out of the harbor about 8:25 for the day’s duty. Lieut. James Godsey Early commanded the ship which included a crew of sixty-two men (six officers and fifty-six enlisted men). On this day the Eagle 56 towed a target buoy at the end of a 500-yard line for naval aircraft bombing training. The ship was destined for the Casco Bay training area a few miles off the Maine coast. James Godsey Early, the son of Hutham Watson Early and Blanche Godsey, was a native of Aulander, Bertie County. He was born June 9, 1920, and his twenty-fifth birthday was less than two months in the future. Early had graduated from Wake Forest College, Winston-Salem in 1941 with a Bachelor of Science degree. He enlisted in the United States Navy Reserve on October 7, 1941, and was commissioned as an ensign on May 15, 1942. Most likely Early had attended the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps. When World War II erupted on September 1, 1939, the United States Naval Reserve was prepared for service and by the autumn of 1941, virtually all its members were serving on active duty. By early 1945 Early had progressed to the rank of lieutenant. On January 23, 1945, he was appointed commander of the Eagle 56 in a change-of-command ceremony at the United States Navy Frontier Base, Portland – the warship’s home port. Early succeeded Lt. Cmdr. John L. Barr Jr. as the skipper of the World-War-I-era submarine chaser assigned to the Navy’s Atlantic Fleet. The Eagle 56’s overall mission was to patrol the waters off the northeastern United States in search of German U-boats (submarines). Shortly after noon on April 23rd, the Eagle 56 had come to a dead stop in the water – a precarious position for an American warship operating in an area where German U-boats were known to be hunting for American ships. Such stoppage was in violation of Navy regulations as an immobile ship made an inviting target for an enemy submarine. Lieut. John Scagnelli – junior grade to Lieutenant Early – had eaten lunch and was below deck to take a short nap before he was to resume his duty topside. As he lay drowsy on his bunk, he sensed that the ship was not moving. The vessel was about five miles out from Cape Elizabeth, but while situated relatively close to shore, the Eagle 56 – by lying still on the ocean’s surface was an inviting target for a U-boat-launched torpedo. Scagnelli slipped off to sleep. Suddenly and without forenotice or warning, the vessel exploded amidships. She broke apart and the two sections sank within minutes. Some crew members were strewn into the frigid ocean waters while others were inescapably trapped in the sinking wreckage. A few men frantically plunged into the North Atlantic to save themselves. Amidst the chaos and confusion, several men spotted a German U-boat that briefly surfaced near the remnants of the Eagle 56. Within a few minutes other United States Navy ships operating in the vicinity arrived and desperately began pulling crew members from the waters. However, by the time the ships reached the chaotic scene hypothermia was taking the lives of men who clung to any pieces of wreckage and debris that would keep them afloat. Water temperatures were in the thirties causing bodily organs to quickly shut down and produce comatose states among the men. Sailors on rescuing ships sadly witnessed several men who could no longer sustain their physical stamina, slowly release their holds on their "life-saving" items and gently settle out of sight in the ocean. The USS Eagle 56, was built by Ford Motor Company and commissioned in 1919. Image from www.uboat.net. Forty-nine men lost their lives, including Lieutenant Early. Only two bodies were recovered. Thirteen men were plucked from the icy waters and survived the destruction. Lieut. John Scagnelli was one of the survivors. Lieut. James G. Early was lost at sea off the coast of Maine on April 23, 1945, when the USS Eagle 56 was destroyed. A memorial stands in the Abner Early family cemetery in Aulander commemorating Early’s military service and sacrifice. Images from www.findagrave.com. The German U-boat, U-853, commanded by Helmut Froemsdorf, had torpedoed the Eagle 56. Froemsdorf, his crew, and the U-853, would not survive the war. On May 5, United States Navy ships, using SONAR, located the U-853 running with her electric motors attempting to quietly slip along the ocean’s floor in an area known as East Ground. About 8:30 P.M. a Navy ship dropped thirteen magnetic depth charges on the sound contact. One of the charges detonated. Three American warships regained SONAR (i.e., sound) contact with the submerged vessel, which had apparently been damaged and was immobile in waters about one hundred feet deep. Shortly, before midnight, one of the warships, the USS Atherton, dropped multiple depth charges on the U-boat. Debris and oil began to surface indicating that the submarine had been damaged, if not destroyed. The Atherton attacked again, wielding a coup-de-grace blow to the German war vessel and its crew. Oil slicks formed and additional debris welled to the surface above the site of the attack. About daylight on May 6, two Navy blimps arrived on the scene to search and photograph the area. A subsequent sound contact prompted the Americans to drop additional depth charges. Soon, no sound was emanating from the ocean floor. The U-853 was "dead." Germany surrendered unconditionally the next day, May 7, 1945. The war in the Atlantic had fortunately concluded. Before the end of the day on April 23, 1945, United States Navy Rear Admiral Felix Gygax, commander of the First Naval District, ordered Portland base commander, Ernest J. Freeman, to convene a court of inquiry into the circumstances associated with the destruction of the USS Eagle 56. Freeman was to serve as president of the court and three other subordinate officers were to be members and judge advocate. The court convened about mid-morning on Thursday, August 26. Early in the proceedings the members of the court seemed to be focusing on explosion of the boiler as the probable cause of the ship’s destruction. Survivors testified from hospital beds during the proceedings that they had sighted a German submarine in the area immediately following the destruction of their ship. Survivors also stated that the nature and character of the explosion seemed more likely to have been caused by a powerful detonated devise rather than the rupture of a steam-generating boiler. By Wednesday, May 2 – after less than a week of proceedings – the court reached its conclusion – a boiler explosion of undetermined cause destroyed the warship and claimed forty-nine crew members’ lives. Norman Kaufman, judge advocate of the court, opined that the "only plausible" conclusion was explosion of the boiler. Case closed. Naturally, the court of inquiry’s ruling was not well received by the crew members who lived through the ship’s destruction. John Scagnelli felt the court had prejudged that the cause would be a boiler explosion – in essence, a coverup. For more than a half century the conclusion of the court of inquiry officially stood as survivors and their families, and the families of the men who had been killed, felt that the truth had not been acknowledged by the court. As time rolled along survivors aged and passed away, taking to their graves the experiences and recollections of that fateful day. Then, on a March night in 1998, Paul Lawton was in a Brockton, Massachusetts bar listening to two brothers tell the story of a United States warship which had been blown apart just south of Portland, Maine shortly before World War II ended in the Atlantic Theater. The brothers’ father had died in the explosion. The Navy had ruled the incident a terrible accident. Lawton, a lawyer and military historian, was quite knowledgeable of German U-boat history. Later turning to a German history book, Lawton noticed a reference note which indicated that the Eagle 56 was probably sunk by the German U-boat, U-853. Lawton began a dedicated quest to uncover and document the truth regarding the destruction of the Eagle 56. Combing through military archives, talking with historians, reviewing witness statements, ship deck logs and any sources that might yield a piece of the puzzle into the cause of the warship’s sinking, Lawton determined that the U-853 had indeed attacked and sunk the Eagle 56. The report of the court of inquiry stated that the blast might have been an enemy mine or torpedo, but the court concluded that the result was a boiler explosion. Lawton was confident that Navy officials had known that the Eagle 56 had been sunk by a U-boat, but would not publicly admit it. Lawton next moved to have the United States Navy change its findings and report on the destruction of the Eagle 56. He wrote letters to the Secretary of the Navy, the Secretary of Defense, and the White House. Nothing happened. Lawton’s father, a retired judge and former state representative, incensed by the lack of interest and response by the various Federal entities, intervened and contacted Congressman Joseph Moakley of South Boston, Massachusetts. Moakley read Lawton’s research and during the fall of 2000, petitioned the Navy to reopen the Eagle 56 inquiry. The Navy conceded and soon Lawton’s research reached a highly capable archivist, Bernard Cavalcante. Cavalcante marveled at Lawton’s work and was appalled by the Navy’s response. The record had to be set straight. The archivist dug up notes from his decade-long research with a German historian as well as pertinent military records that Lawton was not capable of accessing. Eventually, Cavalcante sent a letter to Secretary of the Navy, Gordon England, enclosing Lawton’s research and documents. Cavalcante also recommended that the historical record be changed to state that the USS Eagle 56 was sunk as the result of enemy action. In the history of the United States Navy, officials had never changed the formal determination of a court of inquiry in such a case. But this time was different – the evidence was clear and overwhelmingly indisputable. In June 2001 the Navy recognized that the Eagle 56 had been destroyed by a torpedo attack by the German U-boat, U-853. On June 8, 2002, aboard the USS Salem at Quincy, Massachusetts, three of the four living survivors of the April 23, 1945, explosion, along with family members of men who were killed and family members of survivors who had passed away, were present for a simple ceremonial tribute to the Eagle 56’s crew. Widows, children, brothers, sisters, and other relatives of the warship’s crew members sat with Navy leaders as one by one, the names of the dead were read aloud and family members came forward to accept Purple Hearts. Also present was Paul Lawton, the man who tirelessly strived to "rewrite" history and honor the Eagle 56’s crew. At the end of the ceremony, three elderly Navy veterans – survivors of the destruction of the Eagle 56 more than fifty-seven years earlier – solemnly presented to Lawton a plaque of cherry wood and gold trim, engraved with the depiction of an exploding warship. The plaque included a brief description of the forgotten disaster and ended with: "We thank you from the bottom of our hearts." Sources: Stephen Puleo, Due to Enemy Action: The True World War II Story of the USS Eagle 56 (Guilford, Connecticut: The Lyons Press, 2005); Wake Forest College Alumni News, Vol. XV, No. 2, December 1945; North Carolina Birth Index, www.familysearch.org.; State Summary of War Casualties from World War II for Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard Personnel from North Carolina, 1946, National Archives, Washington, DC; North Carolina Discharge and Statement of Service Records, 1940-48, www.familysearch.org; Find-A-Grave website, "James Godsey Early; Jack A. Green, "Navy Senior Archivist Helps Solve 57-Year-Old USS Eagle 56 Mystery," Naval Historical Center Public Affairs; Helen O’Neill, "Historian Brings Honor in Tragedy," www.navsource.org. 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