USS Acree

John White Acree, born on 23 April 1918 in Lynchburg, Va., graduated from the University of Virginia before enlisting in the Naval Reserve on 9 August 1940. Following training which included service in battleship New York (BB-34), Acree was appointed midshipman, USNR, on 16 December 1940. Upon successfully completing the course at the Naval Reserve Midshipman's School, Northwestern University, Chicago, Ill., he was commissioned ensign on 14 March 1941; assigned to Enterprise (CV-6); and he served in that historic aircraft carrier through the tense final months of American neutrality and during most of the first grim year of war following the Japanese surprise raid on Pearl Harbor.

Following that attack, Enterprise and her few sister carriers were the principal force which stood between Japan and complete mastery of the Pacific. An unsuccessful search for the Japanese attacking force began the carrier's wartime saga and was quickly followed by duty protecting Allied convoys and by air strikes against Japanese islands in the Central Pacific. Next, she accompanied Hornet (CV-8) as that ship carried Army B-25 bombers for Lt. Col. Doolittle's air raid against Tokyo. Although Enterprise next raced toward the Southwestern Pacific to help protect Allied shipping lanes to Australia, she was too late to join Lexington (CV-2) and Yorktown (CV-5) in the Battle of the Coral Sea. However, early in June, she played a major role in the Battle of Midway during which American forces decisively defeated a major enemy task force.

On 15 June 1942, two days after his ship returned to Pearl Harbor and more than a week after the victory at Midway, Acree was promoted to lieutenant, junior grade. Exactly one month later, Enterprise headed once more for the South Pacific and the first major Allied offensive operations of the war in the Pacific, the invasion of the Solomon Islands. Planes from the carrier supported the Marines who landed on Guadalcanal and Tulagi and continued to help the leathernecks until Japanese dive bombers seriously damaged Enterprise in the battle of the Eastern Solomons on the afternoon of 24 August. Rapid, skillful, and courageous damage control parties, one of which was led by Lt. (jg.) Acree, extinguished the fires, checked the flooding, and patched the ship sufficiently to enable her to make her way painfully back to Pearl Harbor for repairs.

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From the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, compiled by the Naval History and Heritage Command (Acree (DE-167)). A work of the United States Government, in the public domain.