Andrew Stanley Eubanks

Seaman First Class • U.S. Navy • Serial 02440101

USS Buck (DD-420)

Entered service from New Jersey • Died October 9, 1943

Missing in action or buried at sea — Tablets of the Missing at Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, Nettuno, Italy

Awards: Purple Heart

Seaman First Class Andrew Stanley Eubanks graduated from Haddonfield (NJ) High School in 1941. He enlisted in the United States Navy in December of 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. After initial training, he was stationed in Boston MA. Seaman Eubanks was assigned to the destroyer USS Buck (DD-420), which had been launched on May 22, 1939 by the Philadelphia Navy Yard and commissioned May 15, 1940.

The Buck served on convoy escort duty between the United States and ports in Newfoundland, Iceland, Northern Ireland, North Africa, and the Caribbean. On August 22, 1942, during one of these crossings, Buck was struck by the SS Atwatea during a dense fog. After temporary repairs, Buck joined the North African invasion force in November 1942, then operated in the Mediterranean, supporting landings in Sicily in July 1943.

On October 9, 1943, the Buck was sunk by a German U-boat torpedo approximately 85 miles northeast of Palermo while on antisubmarine patrol with the USS Gleaves. The U-boat commander later identified himself as Dr. Siegfried Koitschka of U-616, who fired an acoustic-homing torpedo as a last-ditch effort to escape a depth charge attack. Seaman First Class Andrew Stanley Eubanks was lost with the ship. He is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at Sicily-Rome American Cemetery in Nettuno, Italy, and on the Gloucester Township, NJ, World War II memorial.