USS Patterson Reunion Photo Project “Completed”
In an earlier post, I described a project that I started to digitize and post photos of reunions of the crew of the USS Patterson (DD392). The photos are from an album that was kept by my in-laws, Erwin and Marie Schroder. Erwin spent more than two years on the Patterson and served as her First Lieutenant when she sailed through the Panama Canal in late 1945, heading for New York where she would be decommissioned and scrapped. The Patterson was awarded 13 battle stars for her service. As best I can tell, out of the thousands of ships operated by the Navy in WWII, only 21 earned more battle stars. She saw action in many of the major campaigns including the Battle off Savo Island, Battle of Leyte Gulf, Battle for Iwo Jima, and the Battle for Okinawa.
I placed the photos into Flickr albums, one album for each year. I then made a Flickr Collection of the albums. Here is a link to that collection. I wish they had taken more photos, but those were the days before digital cameras and folks tended to be a bit more frugal with their use of film. I hope that by posting these photos some of the individuals will be identified by family members. Also, if anyone would like to use/make copies of the photos, feel free to contact me. I will be happy to grant permission. Finally, if anyone has additional photos that they would like to add to this archive, I would be happy to host them here.
There are quite a few pictures of the Patterson DD392 on navsource.org.
I believe they are official Navy pictures from back in the day.. Also, there is a resin model 1/350th scale of the Patterson DD392 at ironshipwrights.com… It’s challenging to assembly but is a pretty accurate model of the Patterson from 1944 til the end of the war.
Greetings, Steve!
I have several pictures that I sent to Navsource that they posted. One is the Patterson decommissioning party in NYC and 3 from the Philadelphia reunion taken on the Patterson (FF1061) that appear on that Patterson’s Navource page. I would love to have additional pictures from the reunions. I would be happy to credit you and your father. Was your father Eugene Figgins? I’ve seen the name on Muster Rolls. It looks like he arrived on the Pattterson about 3 months after my father-in-law. You could send photos to web@socpsy.com. I would love to have them.
Dave Johnson
I’ve got some pictures of past reunions that my dad took. Let me know if you would like me to scan them and send them in.
Tell me how to send you pictures that my dad had taken.
Yes, my Dad was Eugene Figgins. He joined the Patterson in San Francisco I think in the fall of 1943. Maybe you could confirm that for me? He was a radioman by trade. His battle station was the #1 5 inch gun or so he told me. He told me a few things about the war but like so many others, kept quiet about a lot of what he saw. He suffered from PTSD his whole life. He told me that he “lost it” during the kamikaze attack during the Okinawa campaign.
Given what I know about Okinawa, I can certainly see why sailors feared the kamikazes. I’ve read many pages from war patrol reports that described hits and near misses in very clinical terms, but anyone I’ve ever read about or talked to who experienced that situation described in in harrowing terms.
I found that your father was received on the Patterson on December 22, 1943 as a Seaman 2nd class (S2c). According to Henry Swyers’ diary, the Patterson pulled into Mare Island Naval Shipyard on the 21st, so that is where your father boarded the Pat for the first time. In October 1944, he was promoted in rate to S1sc. I found that his rating change to Radioman occurred in June of ’45 (at least that’s what I think I can decipher from a very poorly scanned “Report of Changes”. After the Pat was decommissioned in November ’45, you father was transferred to USS LSM-446 where he stayed until April ’46. That ship has a Navsource page if you’re interested. I can make copies of any of this documentation available to you if you would like.
Dave