Herbert C. Jones

He kept shells moving through smoke, then sent rescuers away

Herbert Charpiot Jones was born in Los Angeles in 1918. His father was a naval officer, and Jones joined the Naval Reserve in 1935 while still a teenager. After college and midshipman training, he was commissioned an ensign on 14 November 1940 and assigned to the battleship USS California at Pearl Harbor. He married Joanne, who had joined him in Hawaii, during the following summer.

On the morning of 7 December 1941, Jones had just taken over junior officer-of-the-deck duties when Japanese aircraft attacked. California was struck by torpedoes, and the damage disrupted the equipment that supplied ammunition to her guns. Jones helped rescue a sailor from a smoke-filled space and directed antiaircraft fire before joining the effort to keep the batteries supplied by hand.

He organised men to carry ammunition from below decks, passing the heavy rounds upward through ladders and confined spaces. A bomb exploded above them, badly wounding him and filling the compartment with smoke. The battleship was flooding, while burning oil drifting from other vessels threatened further fire.

When two sailors tried to take him out, Jones refused to let them remain in danger for his sake. He urged them to escape before the threatened explosion of the magazines. He died aboard the ship at twenty-three. His conduct combined continued concern for the guns with an effort to protect the men trying to help him.

The Navy awarded him the Medal of Honor posthumously in March 1942. He was buried at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego. In 1943 his widow sponsored the destroyer escort USS Herbert C. Jones, giving his name to another ship whose sailors would serve through the war in the Mediterranean.

Official Medal of Honor citation

For conspicuous devotion to duty, extraordinary courage, and complete disregard of his own life, above and beyond the call of duty, during the attack on the Fleet in Pearl Harbor, by Japanese forces on 7 December 1941. Ens. Jones organized and led a party which was supplying ammunition to the antiaircraft battery of the U.S.S. California after the mechanical hoists were put out of action, when he was fatally wounded by a bomb explosion. When two men attempted to take him from the area which was on fire, he refused to let them do so, saying in words to the effect, "Leave me alone! I am done for. Get out of here before the magazines go off."