| Residences | Civilian Occupation |
| Delaware, Virginia?, Washington, D.C. | Landscape architect |
| Branch | Service Number |
| U.S. Naval Reserve | 121023 |
| Theater | Vessel |
| American (Atlantic) | U.S.S. Salinas (AO-19) |
Early Life & Family
Kenneth Forthenbaker Jones was born at 1218 Elm Street in Wilmington, Delaware, early on the morning of December 16, 1916. He was the second child of George Forthenbaker Jones (1891–1953) and Ella May Jones (née Hinkle, 1892–1918). His father worked as a patternmaker and foreman for the Pusey & Jones Corporation from around 1911 to 1946.
Jones was born a year after a family heartbreak. His older sister, Audrey Elizabeth Jones, was only five weeks old when she died of hydrocephalus and spina bifida on December 4, 1915. Tragedy struck the Jones family again during the Great Influenza pandemic when Jones’s mother became sick around October 9, 1918. She developed pneumonia and was pronounced dead at her home, 2512 Jefferson Street in Wilmington, on the morning of October 16, 1918.
Jones was recorded on the census on January 12, 1920, living at his paternal grandparents’ home at 406 South Franklin Street in Wilmington with his father, aunt, uncle, grandparents, and great-grandfather. Jones’s father’s obituary stated that he moved to the area of Newport, Delaware, in 1922, suggesting that Jones also lived there as a child. By the time of the next census was taken, on May 14, 1930, Jones was living with his father, grandparents, and uncle at his grandparents’ home in Christiana Hundred west of Wilmington.
Jones graduated from Wilmington High School on June 20, 1935. The fall, he began college at the University of Delaware in Newark. The future naval officer struggled during his first year, even getting a D in Military Science 101 his first semester. His grades improved during his sophomore year. Military science proved his best subject that year: Jones earned an A in both semesters.
During his summer breaks, Jones worked in the same shipyard as his father. In a 1941 recommendation letter for the Navy, George L. Coppage of the Pusey and Jones Corporation wrote:
I have known him since boyhood and also his father, and can assure you that he is a man of character, unquestionable reputation, and integrity.
We have given him employment during college vacations and found the service rendered excellent and dependable, and therefore highly recommend him for the Naval Reserves.
In the fall of 1937, Jones transferred to the University of Maryland’s College of Agriculture, studying landscape architecture. His transcript indicates that he did not take classes during the fall of 1938. As a result, he did not finish his studies until the fall of 1939.
He is likely the Kenneth Jones recorded on the census on April 3, 1940, as a lodger at 201 Great Falls Street in Falls Church, Virginia. This man was described as a 23-year-old landscape architect at a nursery with a college degree who had been living in Wilmington as of April 1, 1935.
Jones was awarded his Bachelor of Science degree on June 1, 1940. In a summary of his civilian life, he told the Navy: “After graduation from college in June of 1940, I began working as a Landscape Designer for J. H. Small & Sons, Landscape Firm of Washington, D.C. I was working here at the time I was called into Service.”
Jones also attended some graduate school at George Washington University.
When Jones registered for the draft on October 16, 1940, he was living at 2448 Massachusetts Avenue Northwest, Washington, D.C. He listed his employer as the Census Bureau at the Department of Commerce. The registrar described him as standing five feet, eight inches tall and weighing 130 lbs., with blond hair and blue eyes. However, his U.S. Navy personnel file described him as standing five feet, seven inches tall and weighing 141 lbs., with light brown hair. Jones was Protestant.
Military Career
During mid-1941, Jones applied to join the U.S. Navy under the V-7 Navy College Training Program. Men applying for the V-7 program had to meet stringent requirements, including being native-born American citizens, ages 20 to 27, and possessing a four-year college degree. They had to be unmarried and had to commit not to wed during their training. Men who successfully graduated from the program became commissioned officers. In an interview by a committeeman for the Delaware Division of Citizens’ Enrollment Committee for Fourth Naval District, U.S. Navy on June 24, 1941, Jones stated that he wanted to join the Navy to do something for national defense. The interview sheet described him as a landscape gardener living at 2448 Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C., but with a permanent address in Newport.
Jones enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve in Washington, D.C., on August 12, 1941. It appears that Apprentice Seaman Jones was placed on inactive duty until January 22, 1942, when he began attending the U.S. Naval Reserve Midshipmen’s School at Abbott Hall, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois. These first few weeks were an indoctrination course. After completing that phase, as a formality, he was honorably discharged on February 12, 1942, and appointed the following day as a midshipman in the U.S. Naval Reserve.
Midshipman Jones remained at Northwestern for the remaining three months of the V-7 program. On May 14, 1942, he was sworn in as an ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve, with a date of rank of May 5, 1942. Two weeks later, on May 28, 1942, he reported for duty at the Service Force, Atlantic Subordinate Command, Naval Operating Base, Norfolk, Virginia.
On June 13, 1942, Ensign Jones joined the crew of the U.S.S. Salinas (AO-19) at the Navy Yard Annex, Boston, Massachusetts.The oiler was almost as old as Jones but had recently proven her hardiness. Launched in 1920, Salinas had been severely damaged the previous autumn by two torpedoes fired by a German submarine. Remarkably, none of her crew was killed. Although the U.S. was nominally neutral at the time of the attack, on October 30, 1941, the incident occurred in the context of an undeclared naval war between the U.S. and Germany in the months before Pearl Harbor, following the American decision to escort Atlantic convoys to the United Kingdom. Salinas returned to the fleet in April 1942 after about five months of repairs.
Assigned to Service Squadron 7, Service Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, Salinas was an important, if not especially glamorous, cog in the U.S. Navy’s worldwide logistical machine. Her main role was to fuel vessels at naval advance bases, enabling the smooth flow of war goods and troops as well as their protection from enemy submarines. She also resupplied remote American air bases.
Salinas set sail for Portsmouth, New Hampshire, early on June 25, 1942, arriving the same day. Three days later, she moved to Portland, Maine. On June 30, the oiler sailed for Argentia, Newfoundland. The U.S. had established a naval base at that Canadian port in 1941 under an agreement in which the Americans supplied 50 old destroyers to the Royal Navy in exchange for bases on British and Commonwealth territory. Salinas arrived outside the harbor on the afternoon of July 3. She spent the rest of the month refueling American and Allied vessels at Argentia. On August 1, she sailed for Sydney, Nova Scotia, arriving the following day. She performed refueling operations there until sailing for Greenland in a convoy on August 5.
Salinas arrived at Tunugdliarfik (Tunulliarfik) Fjord close to the southern tip of Greenland near the American air base known as Bluie West One on August 10, 1942. After several days of refueling operations, Salinas sailed for Kungnat Bay, Greenland, on August 21, arriving the following day. On August 23, she departed for Søndre Strømfjord (Kangerlussuaq), Greenland, arriving two days later to deliver fuel and general cargo to the American air base known as Bluie West Eight. On September 1, she departed to return to Kungnat Bay, arriving two days later. Then, on September 6, she moved back to Tunugdliarfik Fjord. After more routine refueling operations, she joined a westbound convoy on September 18, arriving back at Sydney, Nova Scotia, five days later. On September 27, she joined a convoy to Halifax, Nova Scotia, arriving on September 29.
On October 1, 1942, Salinas sailed for New York City in a small convoy, arriving three days later. After performing repairs and taking on more fuel and general cargo, she joined a convoy that set sail on October 18. She arrived at St. John’s, Newfoundland, on the evening of October 23. On October 28, she sailed back to Argentia, arriving the following day. Salinas spent the entire month of November 1942 refueling vessels and transferring fuel to the base at Argentia. On December 8, she sailed for St. John’s, Newfoundland, arriving the following day.
At 0927 hours on the morning of December 13, 1942, Salinas departed St. John’s, escorted by three Canadian warships, with orders to proceed to New York after joining up with a westbound convoy. The weather was mild, and the oiler proceeded east into the Atlantic Ocean at 10 knots.
That night, around 0010 hours on December 14, 1942, Ensign Jones was severely injured in a line of duty accident. The medical officer, Lieutenant Elmer A. Shaw, wrote that Jones “fell 30 feet from foremast to steel deck[.]” The fall broke his right femur, ruptured his spleen, and caused massive internal bleeding, leading to the rapid development of shock and his death at 0155 hours. When Jones died, Salinas was about 160 nautical miles east of St. John’s. It was two days before his 26th birthday.
Salinas joined the convoy on December 16, 1942, arriving in New York Harbor on Christmas Eve. Ensign Jones’s body was transferred to the U.S. Naval Hospital, Brooklyn, New York, and then back to Delaware. After services at Newport Methodist Church on the afternoon of December 31, 1942, Ensign Jones was buried at Silverbrook Cemetery in Wilmington, where his mother and sister were already buried. His father was also buried there after his death.
Ensign Jones was honored with a gold star on a flag honoring members of Newport Methodist Church dedicated on January 10, 1943, and another on a flag honoring servicemembers from Newport dedicated on March 28, 1943. His name is also honored on the University of Delaware’s World War II memorial and at Veterans Memorial Park in New Castle, Delaware.
Notes
1930s and 1940s Addresses
The Jones family’s 1930 address is a little hard to read in the census record, but appears to be Baltimore Pike in Christiana Hundred, west of Wilmington. The census record states the census was covering the Marshallton area, an unincorporated suburb of Wilmington along the Capitol Trail (later Kirkwood Highway) corridor. The extant Old Baltimore Pike runs between the village of Christiana and the Maryland line, not near the Marshallton area. If it was Baltimore Pike, the home may have been north of Christiana where Baltimore Pike was replaced by highways known as Delaware Routes 1 and 7. If so, despite the census label, this location would be best described as the Christiana, Stanton, or Newport areas rather than Marshallton.
Neither newspaper articles nor Jones’s personnel file provide his Newport address at the time when he entered the service. A George F. Jones of Newport, likely Jones’s father, bought a property “at the Southeast corner of the Turnpike Road or Market Street, and Marshall Street, in the Village of Newport” on July 31, 1936, but it is unclear if his son lived there.
Bibliography
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Last updated on October 18, 2023
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