| Home State | Civilian Occupation |
| Delaware | Bank employee |
| Branch | Service Number |
| U.S. Army | 32167222 |
| Theaters | Unit |
| European, American | Battery “H,” 61st Coast Artillery Regiment (Antiaircraft) |
| Awards | Campaigns/Battles |
| Purple Heart | Battle of the Atlantic |
| Military Occupational Specialty | Entered the Service From |
| Confirmed on roster: 052 (chief clerk), may have been considered 625 (officer candidate) at time of death | Wilmington, Delaware |
Early Life & Family
Caleb Oliver Simpler was born in Felton, Delaware, on the evening of March 10, 1917. He was the second child of Clifford Morris Simpler, Sr. (a bank cashier, who at other points worked as a school superintendent and ran a lumberyard, 1885–1966) and Caroline “Carrie” Simpler (née Caroline Hammis Angstadt, 1887–1969). He was born half an hour after his twin brother, Clifford Morris Simpler, Jr. (1917–1936). Caleb and Clifford also had a younger brother, J. Barratt Simpler (who served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, 1922–1967), and a younger sister, Caroline Simpler (later Abbott, 1923–2016).
The Simpler family was recorded on the census in January 1920, living at 10 Church Street in Felton. The Simpler family was still living on Church Street at the time of 1930 census. As a teenager, Simpler’s twin brother was stricken with kidney disease and anemia. C. Morris Simpler, Jr. died in Felton on February 26, 1936, shortly before his 19th birthday.
Simpler was a Boy Scout in Felton as a child. He attended the University of Delaware, where he was football team manager. He was also a member of the school band, the Athenaean Society, and the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity. After graduating from college in 1938, he began working at the Equitable Trust Company. Simpler was recorded on the census in April 1940, living with his family in Felton and working as a bookkeeper. A 1940 Wilmington directory and his draft registration card, dated October 16, 1940, gave his address as 1019 Park Place in Wilmington, Delaware. The draft registration card indicated that he moved to 304 Marsh Road in the Hillcrest area northeast of Wilmington sometime in the next 11 months.
Simpler’s enlistment data card listed his occupation as financial institution clerk. Simpler’s military paperwork described him as standing five feet, 8¼ inches tall and weighing 137 lbs., with brown hair and brown eyes. No religious preference was recorded.
Military Career
Simpler was drafted before the U.S. entered World War II. He was inducted into the U.S. Army on August 7, 1941, in Trenton, New Jersey. After going on active duty at Fort Dix, New Jersey, Private Simpler was dispatched to the Coast Artillery Replacement Training Center, Camp Wallace, Texas. Journal-Every Evening reported that Simpler was one of eight draftees from Delaware who left Fort Dix on September 10, 1941. According to morning reports, Private Simpler joined Battery “C,” 29th Coast Artillery Training Battalion at Camp Wallace on September 19, 1941. The unit focused on training soldiers for antiaircraft units, which at the time were part of the Coast Artillery Corps.
Private Simpler was transferred to the 61st Coast Artillery Regiment (Antiaircraft) at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, per Special Orders No. 195, Headquarters Camp Wallace, dated December 3, 1941. He left Camp Wallace three days later, the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Private Simpler’s future unit, Battery “H,” 61st Coast Artillery Regiment (Antiaircraft), had been activated at Fort Sheridan on November 18, 1939. Following the U.S. entry into World War II, the 61st Coast Artillery was dispatched to the East Coast. Private Simpler evidently did not make it to Fort Sheridan before Battery “H” departed by road on the afternoon of December 9, 1941. Morning reports indicate that Private Simpler finally caught up to Battery “H” on the afternoon of December 11, 1941, at South Park, Pennsylvania. The battery moved a short distance each of the following days: to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Fort Dix, New Jersey; and Fort Wadsworth, New York. Finally, on the morning of December 16, 1941, one week after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the unit arrived at Port Socony, on Staten Island, New York, to protect the Socony-Vacuum Oil Company. The battery moved to Fort Hancock, New Jersey, on January 5, 1942, only to be ordered back to Port Socony 10 days later. The battery moved to Fort Hancock a second time on February 9, 1942.
Simpler was promoted to private 1st class on February 10, 1942. Battery rosters indicate that Private Simpler’s military occupational specialty (M.O.S.) code was listed as 052 (chief clerk), and his duty code as 055 (clerk, general).
On February 18, 1942, Private 1st Class Simpler and his comrades boarded the U.S.A.T. Borinquen, sailing the following day for Iceland from the New York Port of Embarkation. Although Iceland was neutral in World War II, in May 1940 the British invaded and occupied the island for strategic reasons. Even before the U.S. entry into World War II, American troops began to relieve the British. Battery “H” arrived at Reykjavík, Iceland, on March 6, 1942, and moved to Camp Selby. On March 14, 1942, the battery moved to Royal Air Force Kaldadarnes, an airfield at Kaldaðarnes, Iceland. There was limited enemy activity since the Germans lacked any operational aircraft carriers and had relatively few long-range aircraft.
Several months after arriving in Iceland, Simpler had the opportunity to return to the United States to attend Antiaircraft Artillery Officer Candidate School (O.C.S.) at Camp Davis, North Carolina. As was customary for officer candidates, he was promoted to corporal on May 26, 1942, the day he left Battery “H.”
Overseas travel was very hazardous at that time. The Battle of the Atlantic had been in progress since the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, but the U.S. entry into World War II intensified U-boat activity along the U.S. East Coast.
Corporal Simpler boarded the S.S. Cherokee, a civilian vessel skippered by Twiggs E. Brown (1887–1967), which sailed from Iceland on May 27, 1942. Records indicate there were 169 men aboard the ship: 112 crew members, 11 members of the U.S. Navy Armed Guard manning the ship’s single 4-inch gun, and 46 passengers (43 U.S. Army personnel, two Soviet naval personnel, and a coast pilot). Of the U.S. Army passengers, 36 were earmarked for O.C.S. in the continental United States and six were traveling for medical treatment, with the 43rd man supposed to attend warrant officer music school. The vessel stopped in Halifax, Nova Scotia, joining Convoy XB-25 for the rest of the voyage to Boston, Massachusetts. Although Cherokee’s top speed was 16–17 knots, she was forced to sail at half that speed to stay with the convoy.
It was stormy on the night of June 15, 1942, with a northwest gale blowing, but the convoy was scheduled to reach Boston on the 16th. About 75 miles east of Boston and perhaps 30 miles northeast of the tip of Cape Cod, steaming at eight knots, the convoy was intercepted by a German submarine, U-87, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Joachim Berger (1913–1943). The submarine fired two torpedoes at S.S. Port Nicholson, followed by two more at S.S. Cherokee.
In testimony before the “C” Marine Investigation Board of Boston on June 18, 1942, Third Mate Edwin R. Kremer, Jr. (1922–2001) stated that after Port Nicholson was hit, he
rung down [to the engine room] “full speed” and gave “hard right [rudder]” to the quartermaster, and then the captain was on the bridge at the time, and he threw on the alarms for the passengers’ quarters and the crew quarters, and I threw in the alarm for the gun crew, and then the captain went to the telephone and told the engine room, “Give her all she’s got. We have been attacked.”
Lookouts and the men manning the 4-inch gun searched the darkness looking in vain for the enemy submarine. Cherokee’s master testified that despite the evasive maneuvers, his ship was torpedoed forward on the port side, followed by a second on the “Port side, aft of amidships[.]”
According to a summary of the incident in a document in Simpler’s individual deceased personnel file (I.D.P.F.), Cherokee
was struck by two torpedoes within a minute and a half of each other at 2230 15 June 1942 and sank by the bow within seven minutes after the first torpedo struck. No lifeboats could be launched because of the list but seven life rafts were cut loose. Of the total of 169 crew members and passengers on board, two were known to be killed and eighty-six were missing. The first torpedo exploded under the bridge with terrific force, lifting the shift out of the water momentarily and the second struck amidships. Many were asleep at the time of the attack and did not get on deck in the short time before the vessel went under.
Despite that the heavy seas and the speed with which the ship went down, 83 men (just under half of those aboard Cherokee) were rescued by other ships in the convoy, including 23 of the 43 Army passengers. 86 men died in the sinking, including Corporal Simpler. Several bodies were recovered by other ships in the convoy and buried at sea, while others washed ashore on the coast of Canada. Simpler’s body was never found. Less than a year later, on March 4, 1943, Canadian warships sank U-87 with all hands, including Kapitänleutnant Berger. Although he was initially classified as missing in action, with no indication that Simpler could have become a prisoner or otherwise survived, a finding of death was issued one year after his death.
Journal-Every Evening reported on March 8, 1946, that a V.F.W. post in Felton was to be named in honor of Corporal Simpler, Technician 5th Grade Loran C. Adams and Private John A. Ware:
Three Delaware men who died in World War II will be perpetuated in the memory of their home town and their schoolday friends when the Adams-Simpler-Ware Post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars is formally dedicated in Felton Sunday afternoon [March 10] at 2:30 o’clock.
Corporal Simpler’s family placed a cenotaph at Barratts Chapel Cemetery in Frederica, Delaware, where his twin brother had been buried. His parents and younger brother were also buried there after their deaths. Corporal Simpler’s name is also honored at the Tablets of the Missing at the East Coast Memorial in New York City and at Veterans Memorial Park in New Castle, Delaware.
Notes
Time of Attack
There are some discrepancies in the time of the attack, possibly due to time zones. A summary of the attack in Simpler’s I.D.P.F. gave the attack as about 2230 hours Eastern War Time (Eastern Daylight Time) on June 15, 1942. Captain Brown testified that the ship was torpedoed at around 2321 or 2322. It is unclear if the ship’s clock had been changed over from Atlantic Time by that point or whether the summary was an hour off. An article on uboat.net, based on German records, stated that U-87 fired two torpedoes at the Cherokee at 0421 hours on June 16, 1942. Presumably that was not adjusted for local time.
Had Simpler sailed a month later, the attack would not have happened (at least not where it did), because the Germans pulled their submarines away from the East Coast in July 1942 as sinkings fell due to Allied convoys and airpower.
Photo Enhancement
The Blue Hen photo on this page was digitally enhanced using tools on the genealogy website MyHeritage. This software is useful in instances where the only known photograph is of limited resolution (due to the resolution of yearbook printing). I believe it to be an accurate reconstruction, but the software could potentially introduce errors by misinterpreting fuzzy details in the original photograph. A comparison of the original and enhanced versions of the photos can be viewed below.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to the Delaware Public Archives and to the University of Delaware for the use of their photos of Simpler.
Bibliography
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“16 Selectees Are Assigned.” Journal-Every Evening, September 11, 1941. https://www.newspapers.com/article/152498685/
The 1937–1938 Blue Hen. Courtesy of the University of Delaware. https://udspace.udel.edu/bitstream/handle/19716/9760/1937_03_Classes.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y
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Census Record for Oliver Simpler. April 2, 1930. Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930. Record Group 29, Records of the Bureau of the Census. National Archives at Washington, D.C. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/6224/images/4531890_00475
Census Record for Oliver Simpler. April 25, 1940. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940. Record Group 29, Records of the Bureau of the Census. National Archives at Washington, D.C. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2442/images/m-t0627-00544-00763
Census Record for Oliver Simpler. January 8, 1920. Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. Record Group 29, Records of the Bureau of the Census. National Archives at Washington, D.C. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/6061/images/4295768-00478
Certificate of Birth for Caleb Oliver Simpler. Undated, c. March 10, 1917. Record Group 1500-008-094, Birth certificates. Delaware Public Archives, Dover, Delaware. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-62R9-4XD
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Draft Registration Card for Caleb Oliver Simpler. October 16, 1940. WWII Draft Registration Cards for Delaware, October 16, 1940 – March 31, 1947. Record Group 147, Records of the Selective Service System. National Archives at St. Louis, Missouri. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2238/images/44003_10_00007-01361
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Polk’s Wilmington (New Castle County, Del.) City Directory 1940. R. L. Polk & Company Publishers, 1940. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2469/images/16114656
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Simpler, Clifford M., Sr. Individual Military Service Record for Caleb Oliver Simpler. Undated, c. 1946. Record Group 1325-003-053, Record of Delawareans Who Died in World War II. Delaware Public Archives, Dover, Delaware. https://cdm16397.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15323coll6/id/20845/rec/1
Last updated on September 27, 2024
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