EDWARD T. GRACE, LCDR, USN
Edward Grace '39
Lucky Bag
From the 1939 Lucky Bag:
Loss
Edward was lost when USS Halligan (DD 584) struck a mine and sank on March 26, 1945, near Okinawa. Only two of her 21 officers survived.
He was commanding officer; it appears he might have only taken command of the ship sometime in February.
His wife was listed as next of kin.
Silver Star
From Kitsap News on August 4, 1996, remembering August 4th, 1946:
The Silver Star, posthumously awarded to Lt.Cmdr. Edward Grace, was ceremoniously pinned on his 2-year-old daughter's dress yesterday at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. Grace, who lived at 1416 Gregory Way, died March 26, 1945, during the assault on Okinawa Gunto, Ryukyu Islands. As the commanding officer of USS Halligan, he maneuvered the destroyer into "withering fire" from Japanese shore batteries, torpedo skiffs, suicide boats and kamikaze planes to shield inbound Marine landing craft, saving perhaps hundreds of American lives before being killed when his ship struck a mine.
The "Register of Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps" was published annually from 1815 through at least the 1970s; it provided rank, command or station, and occasionally billet until the beginning of World War II when command/station was no longer included. Scanned copies were reviewed and data entered from the mid-1840s through 1922, when more-frequent Navy Directories were available.
The Navy Directory was a publication that provided information on the command, billet, and rank of every active and retired naval officer. Single editions have been found online from January 1915 and March 1918, and then from three to six editions per year from 1923 through 1940; the final edition is from April 1941.
The entries in both series of documents are sometimes cryptic and confusing. They are often inconsistent, even within an edition, with the name of commands; this is especially true for aviation squadrons in the 1920s and early 1930s.
Alumni listed at the same command may or may not have had significant interactions; they could have shared a stateroom or workspace, stood many hours of watch together… or, especially at the larger commands, they might not have known each other at all. The information provides the opportunity to draw connections that are otherwise invisible, though, and gives a fuller view of the professional experiences of these alumni in Memorial Hall.
June 1940
Ensign, USS Bagley
November 1940
Ensign, USS Bagley
April 1941
Ensign, USS Bagley
Class of 1939
Edward is one of 78 members of the Class of 1939 on Virtual Memorial Hall.
