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Hull Number: DD-938

Launch Date: 08/07/1956

Commissioned Date: 07/19/1957

Decommissioned Date: 03/04/1983

Call Sign: NVVW

Voice Call Sign: HIGHEST AWARD, HIGHTEST


Class: FORREST SHERMAN

FORREST SHERMAN Class


Namesake: JONAS HOWARD INGRAM

JONAS HOWARD INGRAM

Wikipedia (as of 2024)

Admiral Jonas Howard Ingram (October 15, 1887 – September 9, 1952) was an officer in the United States Navy during World War I and World War II. He commanded the United States Atlantic Fleet during World War II and was a recipient of the Medal of Honor for his actions in 1914 in Veracruz, Mexico.

A noteworthy football player during his collegiate years, Ingram is remembered as the second commissioner of the All-America Football Conference (AAFC), a professional American football league launched in 1946 and terminated in 1950 with the absorption of three teams into the rival National Football League. Ingram was appointed to the position in 1947 and resigned in 1949.

As a youth, Ingram attended Jeffersonville High School and Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana, then was appointed to the United States Naval Academy in 1903, at the age of 17. He graduated in 1907 and his classmates included Patrick N. L. BellingerHenry K. HewittGeorge M. CourtsClaud A. Jones, and Willis W. Bradley.[1] During Ingram’s time at the academy, he was a member of the school’s rowing, track, and football teams, leading the latter team to the Midshipmen‘s first victory in six years over their bitter rivals from Army by scoring the lone touchdown in the 1906 clash. His athletic exploits helped earn him the academy’s prestigious Athletic Sword and induction into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1968.

As a lieutenant, Ingram was named the 15th head football coach of the United States Naval Academy and he held that position for two seasons, from 1915 until 1916, compiling a record of 9–8–2.[2]

From 1926 through 1930, Ingram was the director of athletics of the Naval Academy.[3] Thereafter he retained a close connection to football by working as a referee at the collegiate and professional level.[3]

Following his graduation in 1907, Ingram served in several battleships, cruisers and destroyers. As turret officer of the battleship USS Arkansas (BB-33), he established a world’s record for firing 12-inch (305 mm) guns. On April 22, 1914, he landed at Veracruz, Mexico with the Arkansas battalion and was later awarded the Medal of Honor for “distinguished conduct in battle” and “skillful and efficient handling of the artillery and machine guns”.

During World War I, Ingram was awarded the Navy Cross for his services on the staff of Rear Admiral Hugh Rodman, Commander, Division Nine, Battle Force, Atlantic Fleet.[4]

Earning the rank of commander in 1924, Ingram became the commanding officer of the destroyer USS Stoddert (DD-302) before returning to the United States Naval Academy to serve as both athletic director and football director from 1926 to 1930.

Ingram moved on to command the battleship USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) for a period of time after that, before serving as Officer-in-Charge of the Public Relations Branch.

Prior to his promotion to captain in 1935, Ingram served as an aide to the Secretary of the Navy, then returned to the sea as commander of Destroyer Squadron Six. Ashore, he was Captain of the YardNew York Navy Yard in BrooklynNew York before returning to sea, in command of the battleship USS Tennessee (BB-43).

In the early years of World War II, Ingram was promoted to rear admiral on January 10, 1941, and served as Commander Task Force Three prior to his designation in September 1942 as Commander South Atlantic ForceUnited States Atlantic Fleet, with the rank of vice admiral. This force, with headquarters in Brazil, guarded shipping in the coastal waters south of the Equator and throughout the United States zone of responsibility in the South Atlantic. Ingram’s command included air and surface units of Brazil which were brought to a high state of efficiency through his leadership and coordinating efforts. The ability to develop and maintain harmony and close cooperation with Brazilian naval forces contributed to the control of the South Atlantic achieved by the Allies. He assumed personal responsibility for properly equipping and training the Brazilian Navy and for their combat operations against U-Boats and German raiders and later for the important task of maintaining the air and sea rescue patrol for ultimate deployment in the Pacific. For his services in these important commands, he was awarded the Navy Distinguished Service Medal and a gold award star in lieu of a second award.

On November 15, 1944, Ingram was appointed Commander-in-ChiefUnited States Atlantic Fleet, with the rank of admiral. In this command he played a major role in assuring the steady flow of troops and materials to Europe across the Atlantic during the later phases of World War II. He also directed Atlantic Fleet efforts in containing and destroying the German U-Boat fleet. For exceptionally meritorious service during his command, he was awarded a gold award star in lieu of a third Distinguished Service Medal.

Detached from duty as Commander-in-Chief, United States Atlantic Fleet, during September 1946, he subsequently retired from active duty on April 1, 1947, after 44 years of service.

In February 1947 Ingram was named commissioner of the All-America Football Conference (AAFC), replacing Jim Crowley. The post carried with it an annual salary of $30,000 — approximately $470,000 in the 2023 equivalent.[5]

Serving until resigning in 1949, Ingram went on to serve as a vice president for the Reynolds Metals Company.

In August 1952, Ingram suffered a heart attack while serving as the superintendent of summer schools at Culver Academies, then was stricken again with another attack on September 9, while at the United States Naval Hospital in San Diego, California. He died the following evening.

Admiral Ingram and his wife Jean Fletcher (1892–1954) are buried at Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Virginia.[6]

Medal of Honor Citation

Rank and organization: Lieutenant, Junior Grade, U.S. Navy. Born: October 15, 1886, Jeffersonville, Ind. Accredited to: Indiana. G.O. No.: 177, December 4, 1915.

Citation

For distinguished conduct in battle, engagement of Vera Cruz, 22 April 1914. During the second day’s fighting the service performed by him was eminent and conspicuous. He was conspicuous for skillful and efficient handling of the artillery and machineguns of the Arkansas battalion, for which he was specially commended in reports.

Additional Awards

Ingram also held the following foreign decorations: Order of the Southern Cross (Brazil); Grand Officer of the Order of Military Merit (Brazil); Order of Naval Merit (Brazil)Order of Aeronautical Merit, Degree of Grand Officer (Brazil); Order of Leopold II (Belgium); and Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (Great Britain).


Disposition:

Stricken 6/15/1983, sunk as target 7/1988


A Tin Can Sailors Destroyer History

USS JONAS INGRAM DD-938

The Tin Can Sailor October 1999

Launched on 7 August 1956, the JONAS INGRAM (DD-938) was named for Jonas H. Ingram, a World War I veteran and a World War II commander of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet. She was commissioned on 19 July 1957 and from her home port in Mayport, Florida, she operated in the North and South Atlantic and Mediterranean. In the fall of 1959, as flagship of the South Atlantic Forces commander, she visited nine African countries and led joint exercises with the French and South African navies.

Spring 1960 found her dodging icebergs in the North Atlantic while covering President Eisenhower’s flights to and from the Paris Summit Conference. A year later, she was in warmer waters supporting United Nations peace-keeping efforts in the Congo.

For the next two years, the INGRAM alternated Mediterranean deployments with operations out of Mayport. In 1964, she represented the U.S. at Independence Day ceremonies for the island of Malta and embarked Turkish naval officers as part of a NATO exchange program. In 1964 and ‘65, she served as on the recovery force for the Gemini space shots. Antisubmarine exercises in the North Atlantic and a people-to-people Middle Eastern cruise rounded out 1965. During 1966, she joined the first Apollo recovery team and operated in the Caribbean and Mediterranean, where in September, she and the STRIBLING (DD-867) were the first U.S. warships to visit Egypt since 1952. The INGRAM operated out of Mayport and then steamed with the Sixth Fleet into the fall of 1967.

Following her eighteen-month antisubmarine warfare conversion in Philadelphia, she was recommissioned on 1 August 1970, and put her new capabilities to the test operating with the nuclear submarine NAUTILUS (SSN-571) and tracking Soviet naval activity in waters around Cuba. During her 1972 deployment to the Mediterranean, she was assigned to surveillance of nearly a dozen Soviet units in addition to several search and rescue operations to recover wreckage from downed aircraft.

In the spring of 1973, en route to the Middle East, she refueled in Angola, which turned out to be a unique experience. Fuel was delivered to the ship at pierside by gasoline trucks. Forty of them took nearly seventeen hours to deliver 168,000 gallons of fuel. On station in the Gulf of Aden in June, she received a distress call from the Indian merchant and passenger ship, the SAUDI, which was sinking 130 miles to the southeast. Racing into stormy seas, the INGRAM didn’t locate the first survivor until 0300 and then with a better fix on the spot where the SAUDI went down sharpened the focus of her search for the merchantman’s ninety-eight passengers and crew. Apparently, a large wave had hit the Indian ship causing a permanent list when her cargo shifted. She floated for another forty-five minutes and then capsized. The INGRAM searched through the night, eventually recovering six bodies and forty-four survivors clinging to debris and a few life rafts. Another fourteen survivors were picked up by a pair of merchant ships, one Israeli, one Japanese. Several of the destroyer’s crew performed heroically. Braving hazardous conditions, SN Sword, STG3 Martinez, GMG2 Bellucci, and Lt. jg Parker went into the water to bring people aboard, and on deck, HM1 Gabrielson, ENFN Imlay, and Lt. Taylor saved several lives with CPR. The INGRAM took fifty-four of the survivors to Djibouti, Somalia before proceeding to Bahrain. There, the INGRAM’s crew discovered that during their rescue efforts, debris from the sunken ship had seriously damaged one of the ship’s propellers. A new ten-ton prop was flown out from the states by an air force C5A Galaxy and then local divers worked underwater to replace the damaged propeller in record time.

Routine rotations occupied the INGRAM over the next three years, then in 1976, she participated in NATO exercises that ranged from Norway through Europe to the Mediterranean. While in the Baltic Sea on 3 October 1976, the INGRAM again went to the rescue of sailors in distress. This time it was the seven-man crew of a small Finnish vessel.

Early in 1977, the INGRAM joined the TRIPPE (FF-1075) for a series of diplomatic visits to West African ports. During the ship’s visit to Accra, Ghana, crew member SK3 John Donkor, a former citizen of Ghana, was reunited with three of his children. Later, en route to Mombasa, Kenya, she escorted the USNS KINGSPORT and several other units as they conducted hydrographic tests and surveys. The INGRAM spent most of May in surveillance operation in the Gulf of Oman and in visits to Iranian ports. She ended her 35,000-mile journey in July.

In the Mediterranean on 21 August 1978, severe boiler problems interrupted the ship’s operations and required extensive repairs in Naples until mid-September. During exercises in early October, a violent storm off Southern France sent the INGRAM and other ships in search of shelter. During her Mediterranean deployment, her communicators were the only ones to discover and report a serious fleet-wide interference problem that was subsequently corrected.

The INGRAM moved to Charleston in March 1979 for her regular overhaul, which continued through May 1980. While engaged in refresher training at Guantanamo Bay in August, her crew rescued twenty-eight Haitian refugees from their crippled sailboat. The Haitians and their boat were taken to Guantanamo to repair their boat and continue on to Miami. For fleet exercises in December, the INGRAM embarked two women officers for Surface Warfare Officer training. During 1981, she operated in the Indian Ocean, Mediterranean, and Northern Europe, and took part in contingency operations off the Dominican Republic.

In 1982, the INGRAM was first in the Persian Gulf and then in the fall, spent forty-one days off Beirut supporting the multinational peacekeeping force. News of the ship’s upcoming decommissioning reached her crew in the Eastern Mediterranean and they returned home to prepare for the ceremony marking the end of the JONAS INGRAM’s career on 4 March 1983. She was then towed to the inactive ship facility in Philadelphia where she was struck from the navy’s list on 15 June 1983. She was sunk as a target in July 1988.

USS JONAS INGRAM DD-938 Ship History

Wikipedia (as of 2024)

USS Jonas Ingram (DD-938), named for Admiral Jonas H. Ingram USN (1886–1952), awarded the Medal of Honor when a Lieutenant (junior grade) for his actions during the engagement of Vera Cruz on 22 April 1914, was a Forrest Sherman-class destroyer laid down by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation at Quincy in Massachusetts on 15 June 1955, launched on 7 August 1956 by Mrs. Lawrence Hays, Jr., daughter of Admiral Ingram and commissioned on 19 July 1957 at Boston Naval Shipyard. USS Jonas Ingram was decommissioned on 4 March 1983, stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 15 June 1983 and sunk as a target on 23 July 1988.

Following shakedown in the Caribbean and along the western coast of South AmericaJonas Ingram departed Boston 26 February 1958 for patrols in the West Indies. She sailed from Newport, Rhode Island, 2 September for the Mediterranean to join the 6th Fleet and participate in NATO exercises.

She returned to Newport 12 March 1959 and sailed 16 June for Mayport, Florida, her new home port. She acted as recovery ship for an experimental Project Mercury nose-cone which splashed off the Florida coast 25 June.

The destroyer, as flagship for Rear Admiral E. C. Stephen, Commander South Atlantic Forces, sailed for the South Atlantic 24 August and conducted joint exercises with the French and South African navies visiting nine African countries from Tanganyika before returning May-port 15 November.

Highlights of the next 16 months of operations out of Mayport were duty providing air-sea rescue cover for President Eisenhower‘s flights to and from the abortive Paris Summit Conference in May 1960 and a role in another Project Mercury space test late in the year. The hardy destroyer departed 15 March 1961 for the African coast to support United Nations peace-keeping efforts in the Congo. Richard York, who was known for his contributions to the vessel, was commissioned on the ship September 1973, and decommissioned in 1975.

Returning home 8 September, she sailed 18 October for NATO exercises in Northern European waters and returned 21 December. For the next two years Jonas Ingram alternated Mediterranean deployments with operations out of Mayport. On 21 September 1964 she was one of our representatives at Malta during ceremonies at which Great Britain granted independence to the island. During this cruise she embarked four Turkish naval officers for a 4-week visit under the NATO exchange program. She returned from the Mediterranean in time to serve as one of the recovery ships for the unmanned Gemini space shot GT-2 in December. Atlantic Fleet ASW exercises in the North Atlantic during February 1965 were followed by Operation “Springboard” in the Caribbean in March. In the summer Jonas Ingram got underway on a people-to-people cruise in Middle Eastern waters and visited such parts as DjiboutiFrench SomalilandBerberaSomaliaAdenYemenKarachiPakistan; and BeirutLebanon.

The destroyer returned to Mayport in the fall to become a recovery ship for Walter Schirra and Thomas Stafford‘s Gemini 6 spacecraft in December. After operations in the Atlantic and Caribbean early in 1966 Jonas Ingram returned to the Mediterranean for service with the 6th Fleet. In September 1966 she accompanied Stribling (DD-867) to Port Said, the first U.S. warships to visit Egypt in almost 15 years.

Jonas Ingram returned home 20 October where she prepared for Exercise “Lantflex 66-2.” The fleet exercise took the destroyer to the Caribbean late in November and lasted through mid-December. Jonas Ingram operated out of Mayport until sailing for the Mediterranean 17 July 1967. She reach Gibraltar 29 July and steamed with the 6th Fleet into the fall.

The Jonas Ingram was decommissioned and modernized during an overhaul at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. One of the three five inch gunmounts was removed and an ASROC (anti-submarine rocket weapons system) was installed. The propulsion system was also upgraded to run on JP5 (jet fuel) rather than “bunker C”. The ship was recommissioned in Philadelphia in 1970 before returning to homeport in Mayport, Florida.

On 25 June 1973 USS Jonas Ingram received an SOS from the Indian vessel merchantman and freighter Saudi, which had capsized in heavy seas off the coast of Somalia. Steaming through the night Jonas Ingram, at dawn, came upon the survivors of the Saudi clinging to debris. Jonas Ingram rescued the 58 surviving passengers and crew, and nine bodies were recovered, with 31 missing. [1] The survivors and bodies were put to shore at Djibouti. The crew of the Jonas Ingram received a Meritous Unit Citation.

On 4 October 1976 USS Jonas Ingram rescued seven survivors of a Finnish motor craft that sank in the Baltic Sea. The survivors were put ashore at KarlskronaSweden.[2]

The first live fire test of the Mark 48 ADCAP torpedo resulting in the sinking of ex-Jonas Ingram on 23 July 1988.[3]