I never met Louis
(pronounced in the French “Loo-ie”) Derragon (der-A-gun). But over my lifetime, I heard so
many stories about him that I felt that I had known him. He died in his
mid-forties, a few years before I was born, and according to my dad, he was
asthmatic, so apparently that was a contributing cause of death.
His photos all show a
handsome, open smiling face, and the whole family seemed to hold him in the
highest regard.
One photograph shows him in the traditional Navy “crackerjack”
uniform. My dad remembered that he worked at the Fargo Building in Boston as a
recruiter, since he was restricted by his asthma. Many years later in an
ancestry.com search, I came across the application for a military headstone for
him. I was surprised to see it listed his service aboard the USS Ira Jeffrey as
a Ship’s Cook First Class.
It was very interesting
to learn about the history of the USS Ira
Jeffrey. Based on the time period of Louis’ enlistment, 7 November, 1942 –
25 Sep 1945, and the time line of the Ira Jeffrey,
13 February 1943 until it was sunk in a target exercise off the coast of
Charleston, SC in 1962, it looks like Louis may have been a “plank owner,” or
part of the original ship’s crew. It also suggests that Louis may indeed have
spent some time as a recruiter in Boston before his time aboard the Ira Jeffrey.
A history of the
Charlestown Navy Yard published by the National Park Service states: “The Fargo
Building on Summer Street in South Boston which served as headquarters for the
First Naval District. The building today is owned by the Army and known as the
Barnes Building.” It was a recruiting and processing station for the Navy
during WWII.
The Ira Jeffrey was built at the Bethlehem-Hingham
Shipyard in Hingham, Massachusetts in 1943 and was sponsored at its launching
by the mother of the young Ensign for whom the ship was named. The shakedown
cruise took her crew from Maine to Bermuda, and then an assignment to Quonset,
RI. From there, she escorted eight troop convoys to Europe. From The
Dictionary of American Fighting Ships, we learn that: ‘On the [last] return
crossing, 20 December 1944, the escort's convoy was attacked by a German submarine. After sinking an LST and damaging destroyer escort
FOGG (DE-57), the submarine was
driven off. IRA JEFFERY assisted the damaged ship and eventually escorted her
through rough seas to the Azores.”
Following her cruises
across the Atlantic, the Ira Jeffrey was converted to a high-speed transport at
New York Shipyard, and following a shakedown cruise in the Chesapeake Bay, she “then
sailed 25 May with aircraft carrier ANTIETAM
(CV-36) for the Panama Canal and Pearl Harbor, where she arrived 18 June 1945.”
In San Diego, she began
training with underwater demolition teams which entered Pacific beaches in
advance of the “American occupation landings,” and after island-hopping her way
across the Pacific, returned to San Diego. The Ira Jeffrey was
decommissioned in Jacksonville, Florida
in 1946.
Although he is listed
as a Ship’s Cook, I know that he must have received other training, at least as
a fireman – all Navy ships train their crew as fire/damage control. I was able to learn a good deal more, thanks to Tim Rizzuto and the wonderful museum of the USS Slater in Albany, NY. Visit their website here: http://www.ussslater.org/ Tim took the time to answer a few questions via email and fill in some of the blanks, such as during WWII, Louis probably received gunnery training as well.
I have not yet acquired
the marriage record of Louis Philizia Derragon to my Aunt, Agnes Louis Smith,
but they were married in 1945, and remained wed until his death in 1955. It is
a great regret of mine that I did not take the time and overcome some timidity
to ask Aunt Agnes more about a man with such a history as Louis Derragon.
