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USS Menges (DE-320):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Menges
ENS. Herbert Hugo Menges :
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/76513880/herbert-hugo-menges#ad...
The following is from Find A Grave Contributor Eric Schumacher.
"On Sunday, December 14, 1941 Pastor [Fred] Schumacher made a brief commentary in the Parish Paper on the world events of the previous week:
"War!
War came to our country last Sunday. It's terrible."
Those brief words were followed by quotes from Mark 13: 7-8, Luke 21:25-28, and Romans 13:11. With that, World War II came to Redeemer Lutheran Church. The Parish Papers of 1941 had scattered mentions of church members entering the service. Occasionally letters Pastor received would be printed, and he would always keep the congregation informed of soldiers' current addresses, urging members to write them. After the America entered the war, these notices became more and more frequent, with as much space as possible devoted to the letters he would receive, and sometimes open letters from him to the soldiers to whom he sent copies of the paper. The war was quick to have a direct impact on the church:
"We have not heard from our boy, Herbert Menges, at Pearl Harbor, as yet. We pray God to keep him in His protection from harm of body and soul."
-Parish Paper, December 21, 1941
Ensign Herbert Hugo Menges Reported Missing
"Yesterday the paper reported our boy, Herbert Hugo Menges, 24, son of Mr. & Mrs. Chas. Menges, as "missing in action."
The Navy Department lists him as "missing following action in the performance of his duty and in the service of his country.""
-Parish Paper, December 25, 1941
Ensign Herbert Menges In Memorium
"Ensign Herbert Menges, reported "missing" Christmas Day was "killed in action" this week Tuesday in a letter from the Navy Department to Mr. and Mrs. Chas Menges."
-Parish Paper, January 1, 1942
Herbert Hugo Menges, born January 20, 1917, Louisville, Kentucky, youngest son of Mr. Chas. Menges, and his beloved wife, Lena Siefker Menges, was baptized the following month, February 25, 1917 by Pastor John Schumacher (deceased, 1919). He entered our Christian Day School in September, 1922, Miss Margaret Lambertus being his first teacher. He was confirmed June 1, 1930, his text being Romans 1:16. After confirmation he completed two years at our River Forest Teachers' College, and after two more years, graduated from Louisville DuPont Manual Training High School. In 1939 he graduated from the University of Louisville, and was commissioned an ensign in September. Sunday, December 7, 1941 he was killed in the Pearl Harbor attack of Japan. Age 23 yrs., 10 mos, and 17 days. Survivors: Father & Mother, Sister, Mrs. Ruth Flanagan, New Albany, Ind., and four brothers, William, of Lexington, Ky, and Carl, Robert and Elmer of Louisville.
-Obituary from Memorial Service, February 8, 1942
Herbert Menges enlisted in the Naval Reserve as Seaman Second Class on July 3, 1939 in Robertson, MO. He was appointed naval aviator July 24, 1940, and was assigned to Squadron 6 on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6) November 28, 1940. The website, "Together We Served," recounts Ensign Menges' final action:
"Launched by Enterprise shortly before 1700 7 December 1941, six Fighting Six Wildcats escorted a strike consisting of 18 Torpedo Six TBDs, and six VB-6 Dauntlesses fitted with smoke generators to mask the TBDs as they approached their targets. Unable to locate an enemy carrier reported to be 100 miles southeast of Enterprise's Task Force 8, the strike returned to the Big E after nightfall. While the VF-6 Wildcats under LT(jg) Francis "Fritz" Hebel were directed to land on Oahu, the remaining planes were allowed to return to Enterprise.
VF-6 approached the Army's Hickam Field, near Pearl Harbor, at about 2110. Though word of the planes' expected arrival had been repeatedly broadcast to all ships and batteries in the area, their appearance triggered a panic, and within seconds the night sky was bright with tracers. ENS Herbert Menges immediately fell victim to the storm of anti-aircraft fire: the first US naval fighter pilot to die in the Pacific War. LT(jg) Hebel suffered a severe skull fracture ditching his shot-up F4F near Wheeler Field, while LT(jg) Eric Allen bailed out at low altitude over Pearl Harbor, receiving a bullet wound and internal injuries before landing in oily water near the minesweeper Vireo (AM-52). Both men succumbed to their injuries on 8 December."
Herbert Menges was honored by the US Navy with a 306 foot long Edsall-class destroyer escort, the USS Menges. The Menges was laid down March 22, 1943 by the Consolidated Steel Corporation of Orange, Texas, and launched June 15th. She was commissioned October 26th, and sailed for Europe from New York on January 31, 1944. On April 20th, the Menges rescued 137 survivors of the USS Lansdale, which had been sunk by German torpedo bombers off the coast of Algiers. The Menges was herself struck, and nearly sunk by a German torpedo on May 3rd. The ship was towed to New York for repairs, and again saw wartime duty in England in 1945. After the war the Menges was turned over to the U.S. Coast Guard before being decommissioned in January, 1947."
-Eric Schumacher