The USS Jacob Jones

Every evening, especially during the summer, throngs of visitors and locals alike gather at the water’s edge of Sunset Beach to marvel as the setting sun dips below the horizon on its way to another beautiful Cape May Day. Looking out across those waters of the Delaware Bay, it is so very difficult to conjure up the death and destruction, the absolute horror, witnessed by those same waters some 83 years ago. Difficult for those who were not there, but not so difficult for the sole remaining survivor of the sinking of the USS Jacob Jones.

Twenty-two-year-old Joseph Tidwell had just left the wheelhouse on an errand to procure and return with some sugar for the duty officers on the bridge. Well before dawn, it was a bitterly cold night in late February just off the coast of Cape May. The USS Jacob Jones had just finished searching for survivors from the tanker, R.P. Resor. Torpedoed earlier in the evening, Resor was burning furiously, but oddly, she refused to sink. “Jakie,” as the crew of the rescue vessel called their floating home, had recovered no survivors. After their futile search, Captain Hugh Black had been ordered to resume his southerly course toward Five Fathom Bank and the twin capes of Henlopen and May. Jakie’s throbbing engines pushed her easily through the glassy but frigid Atlantic at a comfortable 18 knots. Stepping out of the bridge, the young sailor headed aft toward midships and made his way down to the galley, sugar, coffee, and warmth. Just at that moment, Joseph Tidwell’s world exploded.   

Constructed at the New York Shipyard in Camden, New Jersey, USS Jacob Jones, DD-130, was a local girl. Jakie was laid down, built, and launched in 1918 and commissioned the following year. Too late to participate in World War I, she was decommissioned in 1922 and then loitered in the reserve fleet until recommissioned in 1930 for the next war. A Wickes class destroyer, she was built like a rapier, 314’ long and 31’ wide; she had topped out at an impressive 35 knots during her speed trials. Four 4” naval guns supplemented by a brace of 3” ones were mounted on her flush deck, but her primary armament consisted of a dozen 21” torpedo tubes and two racks holding a total of 60 deadly anti-submarine depth charges.

Often referred to as a “four-piper,” the class bore a distinctive and recognizable profile. After spending the 30s on airplane duty with the Navy’s fledgling carrier fleets, Jakie made cruises along both west and east coasts, the Caribbean and then deployed to Europe. Well used and tired, she underwent a complete overhaul in 1940 at Norfolk Naval Base. Immediately upon completing that overhaul, Jakie’s crew received ASW (Anti-Submarine Warfare) training and was assigned to the Neutrality Patrol off the east coast, operating between Boston and Norfolk. Organized in 1939 in response to the war in Europe, the Neutrality Patrol monitored the activity of possible belligerents off the east coast, while at the same time reassuring the folks at home that the United States Navy was in a constant state of readiness.

With the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States of America suddenly found itself in a shooting war, and the Neutrality Patrol morphed into Anti-Submarine Warfare patrols. And for good reason. Within days of the Pearl Harbor attack, 13 state-of-the-art, Class VII Nazi U-Boats, including the U-578, departed their bombproof pens in Brest, France enroute for the east coast of the United States. Officially known as, “Paukenschlag,” the allies translated it as “Operation Drumbeat.” German sailors came to call it “The Second Happy Time,” while their commanders in Berlin called it “The American Shooting Season.” The war was on its way to the coast of New Jersey, and more specifically, to Cape May.  

Backlit by the burning Resor, the USS Jacob Jones was a perfect target. Kaptain Ernst Rehwinkel in his U-578 could hardly miss as he fired a spread of three G7a torpedoes. At almost 24 feet long and weighing over 3,400 pounds, these deadly underwater missiles sliced just beneath the surface at almost 50 miles per hour toward their unsuspecting target. U-578’s first G7a slammed into Jakie’s port side just below the pilot house. Built for speed, not close combat, Jakie’s thin hull offered little resistance as the German torpedo sliced deep into the vessel’s vitals. Worse, when the torpedo’s 617-pound warhead detonated, it did so inside the Jakie’s munitions magazine. The resulting explosion was catastrophic, instantly killing every officer on the bridge, including the captain, Lt.Cdr. Hugh Black, and most of those still asleep in their bunks. It sheared off the crew’s quarters, chart room, radio shack, and petty officers’ quarters, breaking the Jakie in two. An instant later, a second G7a struck just forward of the fantail, severing Jakie yet again.

So complete and sudden was the destruction that the crew was unable to send out a distress message. Of the 131 officers and crew that had been aboard Jakie, most were already dead, yet somehow, the three twisted, shattered, and burning pieces of the Jacob Jones managed to stay afloat for almost an hour, giving some 30 survivors time to launch and man life rafts.  

Four rafts with survivors on board managed to pull clear of the dying vessel. The water was cold, the air even colder. Daybreak was just beginning to brighten the eastern horizon as two sections of Jakie disappeared beneath the waves. Only the fantail with its depth charges still in place remained afloat, but it too was beginning its plunge. A World War II depth charge resembled a 55-gallon barrel. Loaded with 200 pounds of highly explosive “torpex,” it was hydrostatically actuated by the crew pre-selecting a specific depth. Thus, when the depth charge reached that pre-selected depth, it exploded, hopefully or wishfully, against the fragile hull of a Nazi U-Boat, thereby sinking the sub. Unfortunately for the Jakie survivors on that fateful morning of February 27, 1942, those pre-set depth charges were still in their racks as the fantail of the Jakie disappeared beneath the waves. When that twisted and shattered fantail descended to the pre-selected depth, those deadly depth charges exploded…just as programmed. The resultant explosions killed all but 12 of the 30 survivors.

Twelve survivors of an original complement of 131, and one of those survivors would not live to ever see land again. The USS Jacob Jones would have the distinction of being the first United States Navy warship to be sunk after Pearl Harbor. So sudden and overwhelming had been the attack that nary a distress call had gone out from the doomed vessel and her crew. The next morning, an army patrol plane spotted the small group of survivors and radioed their position to the Inland Patrol. With a winter storm approaching, the Eagle 56, a 200’ long, ungainly, mass-produced patrol craft was nearby and responded. After rescuing the survivors, Eagle 56 deposited the 11 at the nearby Navy Base in Cape May. Ironically, the Eagle 56 herself would also be torpedoed late in the war and, like the Jakie, suffer a very heavy loss of life.    

Approaching Cape May City from the Parkway on the left is Sea Gear Outfitters, home of Atlantic Divers. It’s also the home away from home of Gene Peterson. That is when he’s not dropping down onto a wreck, teaching a scuba class, conducting an underwater safety lecture, or leading yet another offshore adventure. Peterson has been at the forefront of wreck diving in southern New Jersey, longer than…well, for a very, very long time. Suffice it to say, he is widely considered the guru of Jersey wreck diving. Two extensive exhibits of his New Jersey discoveries and adventures are on loan and may be visited: one at the Cape May County Museum in Cape May Court House, and the other at the Maritime Museum of New Jersey in Beach Haven on Long Beach Island.  

On May 3rd, 2011, Peterson received an email from Commander Eric Tidwell (USN). In it, Commander Tidwell inquired if there was a way to arrange for a dive to the remains of a specific vessel, the USS Jacob Jones, sunk off Cape May on February 27, 1942. A certified diver himself, Commander Tidwell was not asking anyone to go and do something that he would not do himself. In the email, the Commander shared that his grandfather, Joseph Paul Tidwell, was one of the 11 survivors from the sinking of the Jacob Jones.

By May 3, 2011, the elder Tidwell was the only one still alive of the 11 who had survived that sinking, and his health was failing. At 92, Joseph Paul Tidwell would not make the dive himself, of course, but his grandson hoped to make a tribute dive in honor of his grandfather, and in commemoration of the lost crew of the storied vessel. How could Peterson say anything but “Let’s do it, but first…”

What followed was a rigorous recertification for the commander that entailed practice dives at local quarries, equipment checks and rechecks and finally practice dives offshore. Peterson is deliberate, careful; he leaves nothing to chance. This schedule also allowed the team to become acquainted with the Tidwell family. There was the grandfather, Joe Sr., now the sole survivor of the torpedo attack during the opening days of World War II; the grandson, Eric, a Top Gun graduate and Super Hornet, F-18 pilot; and in between, Joe Jr., Eric’s dad, a musician who once shared the stage with Lynyrd Skynyrd. Peterson realized that the legacy of the Tidwell family was as deep as the ocean itself. Finally, it was time to make the tribute dive reality.  

At 38 degrees, 37 minutes north, 74 degrees, 32 minutes west is a war grave. At this location, just outside the mouth of Delaware Bay lay the shattered remains of the USS Jacob Jones. Ninety feet under water, the wreck lies in three distinct pieces, just as when she sank. Typically, the visibility here is less than 20’ but on rare occasions like this one the turbid water stills and clears. Then the shattered remains of the Jakie come into view. There is the bow section with its sharp point, and the small bridge with its helm still in place, although the wheel is long gone. Midship, a confusing array of brass valves, wheels, and pipe fittings hint of engines, propulsion, steering, and weapons. The demolished aft section still has unexploded depth charges in place on their racks. An unfired torpedo is recognizable by its tiny propeller.

The site is both accessible and popular with sport divers, but it is still hallowed ground, and must remain so, undisturbed, untouched. Gene Peterson, of course, knows this, as do most serious wreck divers, people like Gary Gentile, Brian Sullivan, and many others. They respect the site as the watery grave of over 100 American sailors, their countrymen.

Likewise, the day that Commander Eric Tidwell dropped down on the USS Jacob Jones, as an officer in the United States Navy, he held only the greatest respect and honor, even reverence, for those who had lost their lives on that dreadful morning. The only reason for his visiting the site of the sinking was to offer a degree of closure for his grandfather, the final survivor of a tragedy off the coast of New Jersey—a tribute for Joseph Paul Tidwell, and so many like him.

Janet Payne walks the beach every morning. She always carries a bag so that she can pick up trash, plastic mainly, bottles and cans, and too often, mylar balloons and cigarette butts. A popular local artist, Janet gleans inspiration from objects, both manmade and natural, that she collects off that beach. And then she creates unique art from disparate objects. Rarely does she pick up an object that escapes her identification. One morning a few months ago, Janet picked up an object that baffled her.

Shaped like a cone with a round, hollow base 2” in diameter, it came to a blunt point. Not biological, not plastic or wood, it appeared to be made of light gauge copper. The object ended up on my desk. Following a hunch, I did a little research and ascertained that what Janet had found that morning was a fuse cover for a 4” naval munition. Interestingly, the USS Jacob Jones had been armed with 4” naval guns, but it is impossible to conclude that Janet’s object originated with the Jakie. Still, it does make one think—and remember.

Joseph Paul Tidwell survived the torpedoing and subsequent sinking of the USS Jacob Jones. He survived the war, lived a full life, married, and raised a family. Sixty-nine years later, Mr. Tidwell was present when his grandson, Eric, dove on the remains of the USS Jacob Jones. Two years after that Tribute dive, on March 3, 2013, the final survivor passed on, thus concluding the heroic story of the USS Jacob Jones.

For more details about the Joseph Paul Tidwell Tribute dive, visit atlanticwreckdivers.org. For more information about New Jersey’s rich and varied maritime history, visit njmaritimemuseum.org.