George J. Gleason Jr.

Rank: Wiper, United States Merchant Marine

Ship: SS East Indian

Entered service from: New Jersey

Died: November 3, 1942

George J. Gleason Jr. was born in 1918. The son of George James and Edna C. Gleason, he grew up in Camden, NJ. He attended Junior High School No. 1 in Camden and was a June 1935 graduate of Camden High School. The Gleason family lived at 529 North 7th Street in Camden, where the elder Gleason worked as a salesman in a department store. George Jr. was the oldest child, coming before brother Edwin A. and sister Margaret E. Gleason. After finishing high school, he attended the Pierce School of Business. Upon graduation, George Gleason Jr. took a job with the sheet metal firm owned by William Strandwitz in Camden.

George Gleason Jr. first went to sea in May of 1942, aboard the SS East Indian as a wiper in the engine room. Also sailing on the East Indian as a wiper was Camden resident Norman David Louderback Jr. The East Indian, under Captain St. Marie, carried a crew of 33, an armed guard of 14, and 10 passengers. The East Indian sailed between ports in North America and India, by way of the Cape of Good Hope.

On November 3, 1942, the East Indian was torpedoed by the German submarine U-181, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Wolfgang Lüth, 275 miles southwest of Cape Town, South Africa. For an account of the sinking and the 13-day ordeal of the survivors before their rescue, click here.

The U-181 was destined for a strange end. While undergoing repairs at Singapore when Germany surrendered, U-181 was taken over by the Japanese Navy and became submarine I-501. She was surrendered to the British at Singapore on August 15, 1945 and scuttled there on February 16, 1946.

George Gleason was survived by his parents, brother, and sister.

2 Camden Youths Among Casualties Announced by Merchant Marine

Two Camden men and three from South Jersey are among 21 in the state reported missing and believed lost between November 22 and December 21, it was announced yesterday by the Merchant Marine.

The Camden men were George J. Gleason Jr., 24, of 529 North 7th Street. He was a seaman aboard a ship that was torpedoed November 3 by a U-boat. News their son is missing was received by Mr. and Mrs. Gleason at their home; and Norman David Louderback Jr., 26, a wiper, of 1208 Mt. Ephraim Avenue, son of Mr. and Mrs. Norman Louderback and husband of Frances Guaglano. He enlisted in January 1942 and was married soon afterward to his fiancée whom he met while working at the RCA-Victor Division of the Radio Corporation of America.

Gleason, a graduate of Camden High School and the Pierce School of Business Administration, sailed last May. Louderback and Gleason served on the same ship.

Gleason’s family received their last word from him in September from Calcutta. He wrote them then that he was convoying supplies to Russia.

Shipmates of Gleason who survived the sinking said the vessel went down in two minutes after the torpedo found its mark. Twenty-four members of the crew, who reached the lifeboats, started to row for Cape Town, 400 miles away, but were picked up by a British merchantman in the Indian Ocean. They were landed at Cape Town.

The lifeboat survivors told their rescuers that 34 other members of the crew escaped on three life rafts, which they lashed together. A search was made for the 34, but they were not found.

After sinking the American ship, members of the submarine crew took moving pictures of the foundering vessel. Then the undersea craft submerged, the survivors said.

Gleason formerly was employed by the sheet metal firm of William Strandwitz, whose son, Marine Corps Lt. John T. Strandwitz, was recently reported killed in action.