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ENSIGN JAMES J.
CUNNINGHAM was born in New Jersey about 1916 to Hugh and Elizabeth
Cunningham. He grew up in Camden, in a row house at 754 Line Street, near the corner
of Line Street and Newton Avenue. Of the six Cunningham children, he was the only son. Hugh Cunningham followed the
sea as a profession, in 1930 he listed his occupation as Marine
Engineer. James Cunningham was a 1934 graduate of Camden Catholic High
School in Camden NJ, and from LaSalle University in 1938. He had wed
prior to the war, and with his wife Dorothy, had one son, Thomas
Cunningham, early in 1942. James
J. Cunningham entered the United States Navy on September 18, 1942,
and was commissioned as an ensign. After training at Dartmouth
College in New Hampshire, and was then stationed the Naval base in
Boston MA. He also saw duty at the Naval
Armed Guard Center at Brooklyn NY. He served was an officer on the
naval Armed Guard stationed
on merchant vessels crossing the Atlantic. The Armed
Guard were not guards, as such. They were United States
Navy gun crews consisting of gunners, coxswains and boatswains,
radiomen, signalmen, an occasional pharmacist, and toward the end of
the war a few radarmen serving at sea on merchant ships. The Merchant
Marine ran the ships and the Armed
Guard we provided gunnery protection and communications
services. Our crews were small, our hearts were large. The Merchant
Marine crew took the same risks and many of them had been rejected by
the military services or were requested to stay in the Merchant Marine
where they were badly needed. The Merchant Marine occasionally served
as loaders or ammunition handlers but very seldom manned a gun. James
Cunningham received a brief liberty during the second week of
April, 1943, when his wife was able to visit him in New York on April
10th and 11th. On April 12, 1943, Ensign Cunningham sailed once
again, aboard the Liberty
Ship SS ROBERT GRAY, operated by the the Army Transportation
Service. The SS ROBERT GRAY had been built at Portland Oregon by the
Oregon Ship Building Corporation. One of the first Liberty
Ships, her keel was laid down on May 31, 1941. The SS ROBERT GRAY
was named for Captain
Robert Gray (1755-1806), who as captain of the
"Columbia" was the first American to circumnavigate the
globe. He was the discoverer of the Columbia River in 1792, and Gray's
Harbor WA. Ensign
James J. Cunningham was killed when the SS ROBERT GRAY was was
torpedoed and sunk near Greenland en route from New York to
Loch Ewe, Scotland, as part of Convoy HX-234, on April 23, 1943 by
U-108 under the command of Korvettenkapitän Ralf-Reimar Wolfram. The
ROBERT GRAY carried a cargo of munitions. She had fallen behind the
rest of the convoy when she was torpedoed. Convoy HX-234 consisted of
42 ships, and was attacked by a German submarine wolfpack of 21
U-Boats. Allied naval escorts fought the Germans to a draw, as two
U-boats were lost as opposed to tow merchant ships, the ROBERT GRAY
being one of them. The crew of 39 and all 23 of
the Armed Guard
were lost. Officially speaking, James Cunningham was reported missing in action on April 28,
1943, and declared dead on April 29, 1944.
He is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at East Coast
Memorial,
New York City NY. James Cunningham was survived by his wife and son,
parents, and sisters Elizabeth, Florence, Anna May, Naomi, and Joan
Cunningham, all of 754 Line Street, Camden NJ. |
