One dog tag can preserve a legacy: Mindanao vet

[Bob Hudson]

I picked this up a while back and hadn't until now had a chance to really look at it.

 

[Bob Hudson]

An ancestry.com search for his full name turns up his pre-war and WWII ships:

 

[Bob Hudson]

A dog tag is perhaps the most personal piece of kit (as the Brits call it) a soldier, sailor or Marine carried. We can speculate on whether a helmet, uniform, knife, etc. was actually in the battle zone, but we can be pretty sure the dog tags were with them through all postings domestic and foreign. Now with the internet we can search for the name on the tag and quickly get a roadmap of that dog tag's travels. As someone who did professional recearch using libraries, microfilm and old book stores pre-WWW, I still get a kick out of how we can now find all these loose pieces of data online and retrieve and preserve someone's legacy of service. When I buy from families they are always happy to hear that collectors - when possible - will preseve those legacies.

 

This sailor seems to have enlisted back in 1936: Harold Leslie Patterson. If you search his ship names on Google, you can see he cruised from Latin Ameria to New England before the war, and serviced the convoy escorts from Argentia Newfoundland after Dec. 1941.

 

"USS Prairie (AD–15) was a Dixie-class destroyer tender built just before the start of World War II for the U.S. Navy. Prior to U.S. entry into World War II, Prairie cruised between Atlantic ports from Colon, C.Z. to Argentia, Newfoundland.

A floating workshop for American and other Allied destroyers, Prairie was “mother ship” to a squadron of destroyers at Argentia, the Atlantic terminus of the transatlantic convoy route."

I found one muster roll showing him as a patient on a hospital ship in 1939:

 

Before the hospital ship he was aboard the USS Blue.

 

 

And here's his pre-war musters using hi middle initial instead of full middle name:

 

 

 

 

[pelseth]

That’s really neat. I sometimes forget to check ancestry.com after a search on fold3 (among others), so it is great to be reminded that a lot of military records can be found there, too.

[Bob Hudson]

In November 1943 as a Chief Petty Officer he reported for detail on the future USS MINDANAO ARG-3. In 1944 he commissioned as an ensign:

 

 

In 1949 he was still an officer:

 

[Bob Hudson]

Until now I had not looked at the Mindanao's war record. I just learned that less than a month after Chief Patterson became Ensign Patterson, all hell broke loose on the Mindanao:

 

[268th C.A.]

Why does that name ring a bell, was that sold here on the forum ? Or was there a post on it before ? Nice tag and history

[Wharfmaster]

Nice tag !

 

I have a Navy Good Conduct medal group to a Mindanao sailor that survived the Mount Hood explosion. Lucky guy.

 

 

Wharf

[Bob Hudson]

Here he is on the Mindanao Commissing Day muster roll:

 

 

In 1951 he was aboard the USS LEO AKA 60, running in and out of Korea.

 

[Bob Hudson]

His ships saw some action either before or after he left them.

He was serving on USS Prairie AD 15 when a fire from Spry (PG-64), secured astern of Prairie, spread to the destroyer tender 29 May 1942 and caused extensive damage.

As mentioned he was on the Mindanao when the Mount Hood explosion killed or wounded 180 of the Mindanao crew.

And his pre-war ship the USS Blue was torpedoed on 22 August 1942 off Guadalcanal while patrolling in "Ironbottom Sound.” She had to be scuttled.

The USS Hovey DD-208 was sunk by Kamikaze on 7 January 1945 (two of the five Sullivan Brothers served aboard the Hovey).

He was from Indianapolis and joined the Navy July 1936. Went aboard USS Blue in August 1937. In May 1940 he transferred to USS HOVEY. In August 1940 he was transferred to the Prairie. he went to the Mindanao in July 1943. and appointed Ensign in March 1944. Officers generally don’t show up the WWII online Muster Rolls, but he’s a Lt. on active duty during the Korean War and has USN after his name, not USNR, so this former enlisted sailor became regular Navy.

[Bob Hudson]

I don't know what he did after Korea, but he retired in Nov. 1956 after 20 years. His temporary rank was Chief MM, but he retired as a Lt.