James J. Cunningham
Ensign James J. Cunningham, United States Naval Armed Guard, SS Robert Gray.
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, he was stationed at the Naval base in Boston MA. He also saw duty at the Naval Armed Guard Center at Brooklyn NY. He served as 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 provided gunnery protection and communications services.
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 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, the discoverer of the Columbia River in 1792, and the namesake of Gray’s Harbor WA.
A typical World War II era Liberty Ship, similar to the SS Robert Gray.
Ensign James J. Cunningham was killed when the SS Robert Gray 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 and 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 two merchant ships, the Robert Gray being one of them.
The crew of 39 and all 23 of the Armed Guard were lost. Officially, 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.
Camden Navy Man Missing in Pacific
Camden Courier-Post —
James Cunningham, Catholic High Graduate, Entered Service in September, ‘42
Ensign James Cunningham, 26, of Line street, a graduate of Camden Catholic High school, is missing in action in performance of his duty somewhere in the Southern Pacific war zone.
That word was received Saturday by his wife, Mrs. Dorothy Cunningham, from the Navy Department in a telegram signed by Rear Admiral Randall Jacobs, chief of naval personnel. The message gave no details concerning the action in which Ensign Cunningham, a gunnery officer in the U.S. Naval Reserves, was reported missing.
Mrs. Cunningham lives with her husband’s father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Cunningham, at the Line street address. The young couple have one son, Thomas, 16 months.
Ensign Cunningham was commissioned when he entered the service on Sept. 18, 1942. He took a training course at Dartmouth College and was then transferred to Boston. Mrs. Cunningham saw her husband for the last time on April 11 when she went to visit him in New York while he was on a brief furlough.
At that time, Ensign Cunningham told his wife he expected to go into action soon against the enemy, but he did not know when or where. She received no word or letter from him until the arrival of the telegram.
Ensign Cunningham was graduated from Camden Catholic High in 1934 and from La Salle College in 1938. He has five sisters, Elizabeth, Florence, Anna May, Naomi and Joan.