The date was October 31st, 1941. Wilmington North Carolina directly linked to America’s first armed forces deaths of World War II -- weeks before the nation officially entered the war following Pearl Harbor.
Southwest of Iceland, a German submarine torpedoed and sunk the American destroyer Reuben James escorting a convoy to Britain. All officers and 108 crewmen died – 45 survived.
President Roosevelt immediately reversed policies supporting Allies already fighting Germany, while avoiding confrontations. Now it was self-protection: “shoot on sight.”
Dazzling webs connected Wilmington to the Reuben James. Her commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Heywood Edwards, was married to local socialite Almeda Stewart.
On hearing the news, hoping for a miracle, on November 2nd she wrote him a love letter:
“Dearest Boy, it has been 2 days and still no one has told me that you are coming back to me. I know you will, because my heart is tearing in pieces and you wouldn’t even die because you’d know your going would do this to me.”
This passionate, haunting letter could never reach him, for he lay on the Atlantic bottom among his ship’s remains. Fantasizing, believing otherwise, she never mailed it.
The sinking news lacked details. Almeda’s sister Elizabeth withheld information. Their mother suffered a stroke that very day. No more bad family news.
Almeda continued the letter she never mailed.
“You must be somewhere - perhaps in one of those ships right now drinking coffee and the boys wondering about the Reuben’s swan song. Darling someday we’ll be having cocktails and then you’ll tell me all about it.”
Then she went on with her life.
She served in the Pacific with the American Red Cross. She was the first Caucasian woman to land in occupied Japan. Postwar, she became Wilmington’s Red Cross director.
The story intertwines dramatically. In 1935, Almeda married Edwards, and sister Elizabeth married Robert Ellis. They were Naval Academy classmates. Coincidentally, Ellis commanded a destroyer operating near the Reuben James when it sank.
Almeda married the pastor of Wilmington’s First Presbyterian Church, Reverend William Crowe. After his death, she married Ellis, then a retired Admiral. In the mid-1960s, Ellis directed the USS North Carolina Battleship Memorial.
In 1940, Ensign Ted Hoggard, son of Wilmington’s notable Dr. John T. Hoggard, served on the Reuben James.
In 1944, the Navy named a destroyer for Edwards, which fought in the Pacific in the same squadron as the destroyer Leutze [Loyt-zee], which my future father-in-law commanded.
In 1942, as a memorial tribute to the ship, the legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie composed the classic unforgettable tale:
“Tell me, what were their names?
“Did you have a friend on the good Reuben James”