USS Reuben James incident October 31 1941
The first American warship to be sunk as a result of hostilities during the Second World War was not at Pearl Harbor. That distinction belongs to USS Reuben James, one of three American destroyers mentioned by name as having taken provocative action in violation of the neutrality laws in the German declaration of war. By October 1941 24 US Navy destroyers were employed in convoy duties between Halifax and Iceland. Reuben James was one of them. When a convoy of 43 ships left Halifax on October 22, 1941 they were met by Reuben James and four other American destroyers.
Early on the morning of October 31 the convoy was approaching Iceland when it was sighted by two German U-boats. Almost simultaneously Reuben James detected one of the U-boats on its sound detection gear. Reuben James moved towards the bearing upon which the sound was detected when it suddenly exploded. A torpedo from the U-boat had struck the destroyer on the port side and penetrated into its forward magazine and the resulting explosion blew the ship in half. Reuben James carried a crew of 159 and one supernumerary, a passenger enlisted man bound for Iceland.
There were 44 survivors, and all of the officers aboard were killed. Whether the destroyer had been deliberately fired upon or if it had blundered into the path of a torpedo which had been fired at one of the ships of the convoy has since been a matter of conjecture. The commander of the German submarine, Erich Topp, became one of the leading German submariners of the war, and never said whether he was aiming at the destroyer. None of the Americans who had been on the destroyer’s bridge survived and it is not known if they had seen the torpedo before it struck.
Within days the US Navy was sending out the telegrams notifying next of kin of the loss of their relative, which would become all too common in the coming days. Relatives were informed that their loved ones were lost in the performance of their duties when their ship was sunk by a torpedo. Nonetheless there was no large public outcry for war with the Germans, and isolationists continued to claim that FDR was trying to drag America into a European war. The convoying and shoot on sight order remained in effect.
Reuben James was the only ship of the convoy it escorted to be lost. That was seldom the case after the US entered the war, Battle of the Atlantic losses rose dramatically in 1942. When Adolf Hitler declared war he specifically cited the Reuben James incident as another of the American provocations which led to his declaration of war. Within a few weeks of the sinking of the American destroyer the Japanese launched their attack in the Pacific and Reuben James, except to the families and friends of the dead crew, was largely forgotten as war fever was directed towards Japan.