Druckemiller, Jack

LTJG JACK ARNOLD DRUCKEMILLER 3 February 1945

Jack A. Druckemiller entered the US Navy in 1941 and rose to the rank of LTJG. He served aboard USS FRANK E. EVANS DD 754 from 1945 to 1946 as an Anti-Submarine Warfare Officer ASW, and Assistant Communications Officer.

He was recalled to active duty in 1950 to serve two years aboard the destroyers USS RICHARD B. ANDERSON (DD 786) and USS VAMMEN (DE 644). Jack remained in the US Naval Reserve until 1967 when he retired as a Commander. Post Navy, Jack worked 40 years for American Electric Power.

Jack Druckemiller came from Marion, Indiana. When in high school he delivered groceries and worked as an usher in a theatre. His father was a wholesale candy distributor. In 1940 Jack graduated from high school and in the fall went to Marion College, then on to Perdue University where he eventually (after the war) received an EE degree, and worked 40 years for American Electric Power in various jobs including a stint at the D. C. Cook Nuclear Generating Station. Jack married later in life and had two children, a daughter now deceased, and a 42-year-old son, who just like his dad, has not married.

Jack Druckemiller enlisted in the Navy while a student at Perdue. It was on 14 December 1942. Originally in the reserve as a seaman apprentice, he was accepted for the V-12 program for officers, commonly known as 90-day wonders. He only had 8 semesters of college, no degree. He went to Columbia University Midshipman School. In 3.5 months, he was commissioned an Ensign. His first assignment, in June 1944, was at the Small Craft Training Center in Miami, Florida. He then went to Fleet Sonar School at Key West, Florida, and finally to Norfolk, Virginia where the crew was being formed for duty on board USS FRANK E. EVANS (DD 754), 3 February 1945. Jack was the assistant Communications Officer.

CDR Smith was a great skipper. FRANK E. EVANS’ first assignment was to escort USS GUAM (CB2), a 600 foot long Alaska Class battle cruiser. After going through the Panama Canal, GUAM could only make 7 knots in order to conserve fuel as there was no place to refuel along the route to Pearl Harbor.

After Pearl Harbor, we stopped in Eniwetok, Ulithi, and Guam on our way to Okinawa where we pulled radar picket duty all around the island. We were assigned to radar picket station 9. On 29 July 1945, we were relieved by USS CALLAGHAN (DD 792)which later that day, was hit by a kamikaze, sinking her and killing 48 crew. That could have been FRANK E. EVANS!

Jack remembered a poker game (strictly forbidden) going on in the Ward Room. In came captain Harry Smith in his pajamas, but with his captains hat, and said very softly, “Don’t ever let me see this again.” Nothing more said, nor done. The chief commissary steward loved to fish for shark. And finally, which should really have been first, during shake down in Brooklyn, while getting underway from along side four other destroyers, captain Smith gave the order to sound one long blast from the ships whistle. Nothing happened except he was hit by a 4 inch column of water that had never been emptied previously. Being senior, he was mighty embarrassed in front of the other three junior Cos.

From an oral history, Texas Tech University… Vietnam Archive