Joseph James Barnes

Joseph James Barnes

Official Military Personnel File of Joseph James Barnes, National Archives & Records Administration

Quick Facts

Significance:

US Navy Sailor, World War II, KIA

Place of Birth:

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Date of Birth:

April 27, 1917

Place of Death:

At Sea, Ten Miles Southwest of Okinawa

Date of Death:

July 30, 1945

Place of Burial:

Honolulu, Hawaii

Cemetery Name:

National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, listed on “Missing” Tablets

Joseph J. Barnes was born in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on April 27, 1917. His parents and seven siblings lived near the corner of Wolf and South Bouvier Streets in 1920. By 1940 (Census) Joseph was a blender in a local distillery and had moved to Yocum Street in Ellwood Park, about five miles from the central city. He enlisted in the Navy on September 23, 1942 as an Apprentice Seaman (AS). At the time, he and his wife Eva were living in Colwyn, Pennsylvania. Barnes trained in Newport, Rhode Island, and then at the Service School, Great Lakes, Illinois, where he studied to be a machinist. He earned good grades in Machine Tools (92%) and Mechanical Drawing (86%). He graduated as a fireman 2nd class.

From April 15 to September 9, 1943 Fireman Barnes served on the USS California (BB-44), while the ship was being repaired in Puget Sound Navy Yard. California had been greatly damaged during the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. Barnes contributed his mechanical skills to repairing and modernizing the ship.

After a short trip home, Barnes reported for destroyer training in San Francisco, November 1943. He became a plank owner on USS Cassin Young (DD-793) December 31, 1943 (meaning he was part of the original crew). With the crew of Cassin Young Barnes crossed the equator on April 23, 1943. He traveled through much of the South Pacific. His ship supported the Marianas Operation (Saipan, Guam and Tinian Islands), Philippine Liberation and the Iwo Jima landing by providing picket duty, screening and rescuing pilots and sailors from the ocean. During the Okinawa Campaign, Cassin Young was damaged by a kamikaze April 12, 1945; one shipmate was killed and 59 were wounded.

All the while, Barnes was working his way up the ranks; June 1, 1945 he was promoted to machinist mate 3rd class (training) (MM3c (T)). After a second, and more severe, kamikaze hit on July 30, 1945, MM3c(T) Joseph Barnes was nowhere to be found.

His wife, mother and sister were all sent telegrams informing them that Joseph was missing. In December, Mrs. Eva Barnes was sent a letter explaining a little more. It reads in part:

“Information has now been received in this Bureau that your husband lost his life on 30 July 1945 while serving aboard USS Cassin Young. Early in the morning of that date, the Cassin Young, while acting as a screening ship outside the entrance to Buckner Bay, Okinawa, was attacked by one or two enemy suicide planes. At 3:25 a.m., one plane succeeded in eluding the ship’s anti-aircraft fire and crashed into the right side, at the main deck level, causing extensive damage. Your husband was observed coming down the ladder from the searchlight platform, a few seconds before the suicide plane struck. The ship’s structure in the vicinity of the ladder was subjected to extreme blast damage, and your husband’s Commanding Officer considers chances of survival under those conditions highly improbable. A thorough search of the area was conducted until daylight of 30 July 1945 and a life jacket was found in a condition which indicated it had been blown overboard, but no trace of your husband could be found.”¹

MM3c(T) Joseph Barnes is commemorated on the list of those Missing in Action in the National Cemetery in Honolulu, Hawaii. Among personal effects sent back to the states, which consisted of mostly his uniform and a pipe, were found three pieces of shrapnel. Perhaps they were from the April 12 kamikaze hit.²

One of the more heart-breaking stories involving the consequences of the attack was that Joseph’s brother Albert George Barnes, who enlisted in the Navy three weeks after Pearl Harbor, was hoping to meet up with him at Okinawa. In early June, machinist mate Albert had come aboard the USS Vestal, the same ship that Commander Cassin Young saved at Pearl Harbor. Vestal was moored at Buckner Bay after having repaired destroyers in the area for weeks. The reunion, of course, never happened.
 

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Footnotes:

1. Official Military Personnel File of Joseph James Barnes, National Personnel Records Center, National Archives and Records Administration, St. Louis, MO.
2. Ibid.