S1 ARCHIBALD RONALD, WWII: Lost on next-to-last Navy ship sunk by U-boat
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U.S. Navy Seaman Archie Ronald (left), 17, meets old South Buckhout Street pals Douglas Morrison (center) and Clifford Morrison on Sunday, April 15, 1945, eight days before Ronald's death. At the time the photo was taken, Ronald was visiting the family of James McMurtrie, in whose 17 S. Buckhout St. family home Ronald and his family lived for about 13 years before moving to Manhattan in summer or early autumn of 1944. The Morrisons had lived at 79 S. Buckhout St. from 1929-1933 and by the time of this photo were living at 48 Main St., about four blocks northwest. The trio is shown next to the railing of a viaduct that spans Barney Brook as it runs under South Buckhout to the Hudson River a block south of the McMurtrie house. The brook runs from the Irvington Reservoir west along Harriman and Station roads and through Barney Park. The address of the white house behind the teens in the photo is 26 Barney Park. Clifford Morrison was serving in the Navy in the Pacific theatre at the time this photo was taken and was also presumably home on leave. Douglas would go on to serve in West Germany during the Korean war. (Photo courtesy John J. Morrison, son of Douglas, nephew of Clifford) That non-combat death declaration deprived the teen of being acknowledged as the Village of Irvington's final combat fatality of World War II. It also cost him his legacy of a Purple Heart and may have deprived his family of other benefits accorded survivors of combat victims. The Navy's verdict, coming after a spring 1945 Court of Inquiry, found the Eagle split and sank after a boiler explosion. The finding came despite five of the 13 survivors of its 62-man crew testifying that they'd seen a submarine some 500 yards away before the blast that rocked and sank the Eagle. Several of the five even described seeing a red horse on a yellow background on the sub's sail, the actual logo painted on what we now know was Nazi submarine U-853's conning tower, a red horse against the background of a yellow shield. In June 2001 the Navy, in a rare if not unique reversal, overturned the findings of its Court of Inquiry 56 years earlier and charged the sinking of the Eagle to the U-853, changing S1C Ronald's death from accidental to killed in action, earning him the Purple Heart posthumously. While Archie and his father had moved from Irvington to an apartment in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan some 16 to 18 months before Archie's death, Archie's Irvington roots ran deep. Archie was born in Irvington on Dec. 28, 1927, the first child of Scottish immigrants William Kirkwood Ronald, a carpenter, and Flora Ross (McLean) Ronald, born nine days apart, Aug. 10 and 19, respectively, in 1898 in the Glasgow suburb of Paisley, Scotland. Little sister Jane, sometimes written Jean, but known as Sheena, was born in 1932. William emigrated to the U.S.in 1922, Flora on Jan. 7, 1927, already engaged to William. The couple married 10 days after Flora's arrival the wedding held at the East Clinton Avenue, Irvington, home of William's older brother by six years, John Young Ronald who had emigrated to the U.S. in 1921. Little Archie would arrive almost 11 months to the day of the wedding, Dec. 18, 1927. Interestingly, he was the second Archibald Ronald in Irvington. John's first-born son was also named Archibaled -- he went by Arch -- an was four when his cousin Archie was born.
Arch became a Navy aviator in 1944 after leaving Colgate University. Archie, who turned 17 on Dec. 18, 1944, entered the Navy January 1945 with the permission of his father, because he was under the standard enlistment age of 18 at the time. Archie and his father had left Irvington by then, moving to an apartment at 625 W. 169th St. in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan by late 1943 or early 1944 after his father had taken a job with the government at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. . Notably absent from the family by that time were Archie's little sister, four years his junior, and Flora. Flora had just turned 41 when she died at home in September 1939 after a long illness. It appears that Sheena had been sent to live with Flora's relations in Scotland either before or shortly after her mother's death. She would have been no older than about 7 at the time. She appears to have spent the rest of her life in Scotland where she married, had two children and died in 2016. Sheena's return to Scotland probably came as little surprise to those who knew the Ronalds. Unlike many immigrant families of the era, the Ronalds maintained close ties to their home country. Flora returned by passenger ship to Paisley with little Archie to be with her dying father in mid-1929 and stayed through his death, returning to New York on April 1, 1930. She returned to Scotland in mid-1931 for another visit with Archie, and gave birth to Sheena in Paisley on Jan. 7, 1932, before returning to New York. She made a final visit to Scotland in 1934 with the kids.
After Archie joined the Navy, he was sent to Sampson (N.Y.) Naval Training Station at Seneca Lake, north of Watkins Glen. He had completed training and returned to Washington Heights on leave when he decided to touch base with his old Irvington crowd, including James McMurtrie and his family. Archie traveled to Irvington on Sunday, April 15, 1945 and spent the day in Irvington. He would return to duty on April 22, 1945 at Naval Air Station Brunswick (Maine), a base for U.S. military air patrols carrying out anti-submarine patrols around the clock for several years off the U.S. coast. Seaman Archibald Ronald was assigned to USS Eagle 56, a 201-foot submarine chaser commissioned on Oct. 26, 1919 that remained in service through its sinking. The Eagle was the 56th of 60 Eagle-class patrol boats built by the Ford Motor Company late in World War I and after as submarine chasers. None saw action. It had a normal crew complement of five officers and 56 enlisted men. Eagle had plied the Atlantic Ocean off the East Coast from the start of World War II searching for German U-boats until it was assigned to NAS Brunswick on June 28, 1944. The end came for Archie while he was resting after lunch on April 23, 1945, the day after he returned to duty. At first he was simply reported missing with the Herald-Statesman newspaper of Yonkers running the following item as part of its report on S1C Ronald's status in its April 30, 1945 edition: "A week ago Sunday [April 15, 1945] the young sailor had visited Mr. and Mrs. James McMurtrle of 17 South Buckhout Street, with whom he made his home for twelve and a half years before moving to New York City with his father a year and a half ago. He returned to duty last Sunday night [April 22] reporting to his station in Maine and on Tuesday, his father received the telegram reporting him missing. Mr, Ronald notified Mr. and Mrs. McMurtrle. Seaman Ronald, who attended Irvington elementary school and was graduated from junior high school here, was seventeen last December. ... No details concerning his being reported missing were given In the telegram."
Naval Department, Bureau of Naval Personnel, Washington, D.C., August 2, 1945 “My dear Mr. Ronald: “In these days when we have so much cause to be thankful that the war in the Atlantic at last has ceased, it is with a feeling of especially deep sorrow that I write you concerning your son, Archibald, lost in the explosion of the USS Eagle (PE-56) on April 23, 1943. Although Archibald was initially listed as missing, the last hope we had for his return has vanished and a careful review of the known facts of the tragedy has led to the sad conclusion that he is dead. “I think that you will want to know what happened to the USS Eagle. On the morning of the 23d, we were engaged in carrying out exercises which consisted of towing a spar for aerial torpedo bombing practice. We had completed the morning’s exercises and were standing by awaiting another group of planes, meanwhile, noon chow was put down and the men who were not on watch either rested or sat about talking. "At approximately 12:15 [p.m.] the ship was rocked by a terrific explosion which split the ship in half and rendered practically everyone unconscious. The ship sank within a few minutes and those men who were not conscious were unable to help themselves and went down with the ship. Archibald was resting in his compartment unaware of the disaster which had struck. He was assumed to have been in a state of unconsciousness – dying in a short time void of struggle and pain. “In the short time that your son was on board, he made many friends and became very well liked. He was a conscientious and willing worker and could be depended on, ‘Archie’ was considered a good sailor and shipmate. “To have the sinking of the USS Eagle occur on the very eve of victory in the Atlantic makes your bereavement a doubly tragic one. There is nothing I can say or do in any way to lessen your sorrow. However, if peace has come at last, it is brave, responsible, unselfish men like Archibald that have made it possible. Your loss is also very much ours, a loss to the men who knew him as a friend and whom he befriended, to the Navy to which he was an outstanding credit and to his country for which he died. “With heartfelt sympathies, I am, sincerely yours, John P. Scagnelli, Lt. (j.g.) U.S.N.R. Senior Surviving Officer”
AUTHOR'S NOTES: The Sept. 29 edition of Military Times magazine has an excellent story about the revisiting of the sinking of USS Eagle 56. Click here to read it. ... ... The last of the children of James McMurtrie, Essie Paul, died at age 100 on March 12, 2024 less than a month shy of her 101st birthday ... ... Archie's widowed dad William remarried sometime between 1945 and 1950, He and his second wife, Annie (Dunlop) Ronald, moved to Tarrytown and in the 1950s and remained there until William's death in 1966 ... ... Reprinted below is a Jan. 25, 2003 Associated Press story about the Navy’s decision to revise its findings on the sinking of the USS Eagle and the research by a Boston lawyer and amateur historian that prompted it: For years, the Navy insisted that the USS Eagle had been sunk by a boiler explosion off Maine, but survivors clearly remembered seeing a German U-boat lurking in the area. By Helen O’Neill Associated Press Paul Lawton's quest to rewrite history began in a Brockton, Mass., bar on a cold March night in 1998. Warmed by Budweisers and shots of Yukon Jack, he listened as his lifelong friends, two brothers, told the tale of a U.S. warship blown to bits just south of Portland, Maine, late in World War II, and of their father, a 32-year-old seaman who perished in the blast. Vividly, the brothers — Bob and Paul Westerlund — recalled the sadness of the time. And they remembered the Navy explanation: a boiler explosion had split the 200-foot submarine chaser, the USS Eagle PE-56. A terrible accident, the Navy said, made all the more tragic because it happened on the night of April 23, 1945, just two weeks before Nazi Germany surrendered.
But their mother never believed the official version. And so she told her children what survivors had told her — that moments after the explosion, as they were diving into the frigid water, they glimpsed something dark and sinister. It rose to the surface for an instant — a submarine conning tower painted with a mischievous red horse trotting on a yellow shield. Lawton, a lawyer and military historian, is obsessed by submarines. As a child, he spent hours drawing intricate replicas of U-boats and battleships. He has taught courses in U-boat history. He can recite every detail of every battle and loss in the North Atlantic. But he had never heard this story before. Lawton knew that the trotting horse was the insignia of a German U-boat, the U-853, which the records said had sunk just one ship in New England waters — a coal tanker called the Black Point. But the brothers insisted that the U-853 also sank the USS Eagle. Lawton's head was reeling. Forty-nine men died in the Eagle disaster. If they had died in enemy action, they would have been entitled to Purple Hearts. They were entitled to more than being simply written off as victims of a freak accident. Back at his apartment, Lawton pulled out his U-boat "bible," a two-inch-thick book by German historian Jurgen Rohwer. A footnote contained a reference to the USS Eagle and to its probable sinking by U-853. "I just couldn't believe it," Lawton said. "Why would the Navy say it was a boiler explosion?" He started combing through the archives, calling military historians, and writing letters to various branches of the Navy. He requested the report from the court of inquiry into the sinking, and also witness statements and deck logs. Sorry, the replies said, but the files were missing and presumed lost. Lawton requested the records of other ships operating in the area at the time, including the destroyer USS Selfridge, which had rescued 13 men from the sinking Eagle. Buried in the military jargon of its deck logs, he found references to sonar detections and to a hunter-killer task force of destroyers and bombers assembled to track down a submarine immediately after the sinking.
Inspired by Lawton, the Westerlunds placed a small notice in The Boston Globe, saying they were looking for survivors of the USS Eagle. Two people contacted them immediately. John Breeze, a former naval engineer and USS Eagle survivor vividly recalled the sinking, the rescue, the dark silhouette of the submarine. Alice Hultgren, a former WAVE [from WAVES, acronym for Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service], remembered taking notes at the hastily convened court of inquiry at a naval dispensary where the survivors were treated. Both were shocked when Lawton told them the official Navy explanation. "Boiler explosion!" Breeze exclaimed over the telephone. "We all — knew it was a sub. How could the Navy deny it?" Hultgren said, "The fellows all said there had been a sub." Their testimony filled 18 pages. Still, Lawton's letters to the Navy continued to be dismissed. "The cause of the sinking has been determined to be the result of a boiler explosion," was the reply he received, over and over. Lawton felt hopeless. And then one morning in October 1999, a package arrived — a 76-page document dated June 1, 1945. It was the court of inquiry report, the formal record that the Navy insisted was missing. Lawton would never know for sure who sent it. He did not need to. In page after page, survivors stated they had seen a submarine. As telling as the eyewitness accounts was the convoluted conclusion. Although the report states that the blast "might have been an enemy mine or an enemy torpedo, " it concludes it "was the result of a boiler explosion, the cause of which could not be determined." To Lawton, it was clear. Top naval officials knew that the Eagle had been sunk by a U-boat, but they could not bring themselves to publicly admit it. Lawton was elated. Surely now the Navy would listen to him. But nothing changed. A year passed. He continued writing letters to everyone he could think of — the Navy, the Secretary of Defense, the White House. And he continued to be told that nothing could be done. Lawton's father, a retired judge and former state representative, became so incensed by the way his son was being ignored that he called his old friend, Congressman Joseph Moakley [D-Mass.]. Just read the research, he asked him. See what you can do. In late fall 2000, Moakley petitioned the Navy to reopen the Eagle investigation. Although the Navy did not agree to Moakley's request, it did forward Lawton's research to the Naval Historical Center. There, it landed on the desk of Bernard Cavalcante, an archivist who had spent 10 years working with German historian Rohwer piecing together a detailed list of all military activity on the Eastern Seaboard. The USS Eagle was on the list, along with its sinking by the U-853. Cavalcante read Lawton's work in shock, marveling at the research and appalled by the Navy's response. Whatever the justification in wartime, Cavalcante thought, it was time to set the record straight. "Cal made me believe that we could rewrite history," Lawton said. For the next few months, that is what they tried to do. Cavalcante dug up personal notes from his research with Rohwer, as well as declassified that Lawton had not been able to find — records that documented the U-853 operating off the coast of Maine at the time the Eagle went down. Lawton tracked down two more Eagle survivors — Harold Petersen of Rochester, N.Y., and John Scagnelli of Morris Plains, N.J. Like Breeze, both remembered being torpedoed by a submarine. In May 2001, Cavalcante sent a letter to Navy Secretary Gordon England, enclosing a synopsis of Lawton's research and documents backing up the case. And he enclosed a rare recommendation — that the historical record be changed to state that the USS Eagle was sunk as a result of enemy action. The ceremony was simple and solemn, tinged with sadness and with triumph. Aboard a naval museum ship in Quincy on a steamy day last June [2002], the families of the men of the Eagle gathered for a final tribute. The top Navy brass was there, sitting next to widows and sisters and brothers of the men who had died. The Westerlund brothers were there, along with their mother, Phyllis, 87, nervous and full of memories, especially when she met the three survivors -the last men to have seen her husband alive. One by one, the names of the dead were read aloud as family members stepped forward and accepted Purple Hearts. And when the ceremony was over and the speeches were done, three old men wearing caps reading "USS EAGLE" approached Lawton. With tears in their eyes, they handed him a plaque of cherry wood and gold trim. It was engraved with a picture of a warship exploding, and included a brief description of the "forgotten disaster" and one man's quest to set the record straight.It ended with the words. "'We thank you from the bottom of our hearts."
EPILOGUE: The website Codenames published the following story about the demise of the U-853, which sank the USS Eagle 56 on April 23, 1945, then took down its final victim, the USS Black Point, a merchant coal vessel, on May 5, before meeting its own demise on May 6, some 8 miles off Rhode Island's Block Island at a place called Point Judith. Here's the complete story ... The "Battle of Point Judith[ is the unofficial name of a naval engagement fought between the U.S. and Germany off the East Coast of the U.S. on May 5-6, 1945. At this time Germany on the very verge of total defeat and surrender, and Adolf Hitler had already committed suicide. U.S. warships, aided by two non-rigid airships, sank Oberleutnant Helmut Frömsdorf’s 'Typ IXC/40' U-boat U-583 off Point Judith, Rhode Island, in one of the last actions of the "Battle of the Atlantic." The 5,353-ton merchant collier USS Black Point was sunk by U-853 on May 4. U-853 was one of five U-boats despatched in February 1945 for operations off the North American coast. By May 1945, she was the only one of the February boats remaining active and also one of just six U-boats operating off the North American coast. On May 6, the U-boat was patrolling off the coast off Rhode Island. Black Point had been built in 1918 by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation in Camden, New Jersey. In World War I, the collier had served in the U.S. Navy as Fairmont, armed with one 6-in (152.4-mm) deck gun and one 6-pound deck gun. After World War I’s end, she was returned to mercantile service and renamed Nebraskan by the C. H. Sprague & Son Corporation, but by the time of the USA’s entry into World War II had been renamed Black Point. On 6 May 1945 the vessel was en route to Boston, Massachusetts, with a US Navy armed guard detachment onboard to protect the ship. Hitler’s successor as German leader, Grossadmiral Karl Dönitz, directed all U-boats to cease attacks on 4 May, ahead of Germany’s surrender. While most commanding officers obeyed this order, some either did not receive it or chose to ignore it. At 5:40 p.m. on 5 May, U-853 was lying in wait off Point Judith when she sighted Black Point and fired two torpedoes at her. Both weapons struck home, one blowing off the vessel’s stern. Within 15 minutes, the ship had capsized and sunk in 95 ft (29 m) of water. Black Point was the last US-flagged merchant ship to be sunk in World War II. Of those on board, 11 crewmen and one Navy guard died; 34 others were rescued by nearby vessels. 
A radioed report about the torpedoing from one of the rescue ships, Kamen, was picked up by US Navy’s Eastern Sea Frontier command in New York and by the 1st Naval District in Boston. The nearest warships, which were under the command of Commander F. C. McCune, were part of Task Force 60.7. The escort group comprised the destroyer Ericsson under Lieutenant Commander C. A Baldwin, the destroyer escorts Amick and Atherton, and the frigate Moberly. Task Force 60.7 was on passage through the Cape Cod Canal with McCune on board when the summons to intervene arrived, so the remaining four ships headed for Kamen's location, with Lieutenant Commander Tollaksen of Moberly in temporary command. The warships had been on their way to Boston after escorting the GUS.84 convoy to New York and, with news of the sinking, were immediately ordered to start a search for and sink the U-boat. When the first ships arrived off Point Judith at 19.30, they began a sweep of the area with their late-war sonar equipment, and just after 00.00 discovered U-853 on the bottom at a depth of 108 ft (33 m). After the warships had made their first attack, oil was sighted on the surface, triggering the first of a number of claims that the U-boat had been destroyed. However, the ships continued to find contacts, so the attacks continued. McCune resumed overall command when Ericsson arrived in the early hours of the morning. Amick was detached to make a pre-arranged rendezvous, and later reinforcements comprised the destroyers Barney, Breckinridge and Blakeley, the frigate Newport, the corvettes Action and Restless, and the auxiliary destroyer Semmes. These last took position around the search site to guard against the U-boat slipping past the attackers. Attacks continued through the night. At 05.30, oil, planking, life rafts, a chart tabletop, clothing and an officer’s cap were spotted on the surface. Nevertheless, destruction of U-853 was not accepted by the 1st Naval District in Boston so the hunt continued. By the break of day, the 'K' class airships K-16 and K-58 from Lakehurst, New Jersey, joined the attack, locating oil slicks and marking suspected locations with smoke and dye markers. K-16 also attacked with six 7.2-in (183-mm) rocket bombs. Finally, at 12.07, the Eastern Sea Frontier in New York accepted the destruction of the U-boat and the hunt was ended. Later that day, US Navy divers from the submarine rescue ship Penguin located the wreck of U-853. the boat’s battle damage consisted of two hits to its pressure hull, resulting in the deaths of its entire 55-man crew. Evidence showed the U-853 had been destroyed at some point between 00.00 and 12.00 on 6 May. During the 17-hour hunt, the warships of TF60.7 had expended 264 Hedgehog bombs and 95 depth charges; at least one ship was damaged by the concussion from the ordnance exploding in shallow water.
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