From the December 6, 2020, Chattanoogan "Jerry Summers: 15 heroes of Pearl Harbor- No. 2" by Jerry Summers.
Ensign Herbert C. Jones was commissioned an officer in the U.S. Navy in 1945, after enlisting in the U.S. Naval reserve in 1935. He reported to the battleship USS California in November 1940 and the ship was assigned to Pearl Harbor.
On December 7, 1941, he was about to relieve the officer-of-the deck when the attack came.
In the first wave, the California was hit by both a bomb and a torpedo. Jones organized and led a party to supply ammunition to the anti-aircraft battery aboard the ship after the mechanical hoists were put out of action.
He was fatally wounded by another bomb and although two sailors tried to pull him from the area which had caught fire, he refused to do so, saying, words , in effect, "Leave me alone! I am done for. Get out of here before the magazines go off!"
Jones was posthumously awarded a Medal of Honor and in 1943, the destroyer escort USS Herbert C. Jones, was named in his honor.
--GreGen
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