USS Whitehurst Logo by: Pat Stephens, Webmaster, DESA
 

New Bern local and war hero gets burial at sea
By: Bill Hand, Sun Journal Staff

Ens. Henry P. Whitehurst ca. 1941

It took 70 years, but a New Bern World War II hero has finally gotten his funeral. Ensign Henry P. Whitehurst Jr, who died on board the USS Astoria when it was sunk by Japanese forces in the Battle of Savo Island in August 1942, received a number of honors but never the traditional “burial at sea” service after he went down with the ship. Henry P. Whitehurst Sr., prominent New Bern lawyer and his wife Robbie Sams Whitehurst, learned of their son’s death by way of a Western Union telegram in early September 1942. It was vague — as those kinds of telegrams tended to be. It assured the couple that the Secretary of War Henry Stimson felt “deep sympathy” for their loss. Henry had died in action it said; it didn’t say how or when.

Henry Whitehurst Jr. had been a popular young man in New Bern when he signed up for naval adventure in 1938. The attack on Pearl Harbor caused his training to be accelerated: He graduated from the Naval Academy in December 1941 and was assigned to the heavy cruiser USS Astoria.

As a junior watch and division officer, he witnessed the battles of Coral Sea, Midway and Guadalcanal, the latter on Aug. 7,1942. Two days later he was in the battle of Savo Island (called the “Battle of the Five Sitting Ducks” by some veterans). At the end of that fight, three American cruisers were sunk, including the Astoria, and Henry Whitehurst had been in the first casualties, killed by a torpedo while hurrying to battle stations. As his body could not be recovered, no service was held.

Whitehurst grew up in a house on Johnson Street, just three doors east from the present day public library and  two doors from the historic Blades mansion at the corner of Middle and Johnson streets.

Thomas Blow, who resides at New Bern’s McCarthy Court, remembers Henry. “ Henry was a friend to us all,” he remembers. “ He lived diagonally almost across the street. He was a great chess player. ... Henry and I were on the New Bern chess team that went to Raleigh and played the champions there.”

They had picked up the game in their early teens, Blow recalls. “ It entranced us both,” he said.

Henry and Blow also did other things together, among themwas playing war with the neighborhood boys, armed against each other with rubber band guns.

“ I had a lot of tools. I made rubber guns,” Blow said. The bands they fired were not the kind one picks up in bag at a supply shop but were carved from inner tubes and capable of leaving welts.

“ We would have fights,” Blow said. “ We would get up on top of garages and defend ourselves and so forth.  It was quite a thing we did every weekend. I remember that well.”

After graduation. Blow also chose a naval career. He remembers a surprise meeting with his old friend and fellow swab: “ I was in this little World War I minesweeper in Norfolk, tied up at the dock and here came this big cruiser and it was all the midshipmen who were there for a summer cruise and he was on it. And he immediately came ashore because he knew I was on this little minesweeper.”

Blow loaned Henry some chess books to study, but it’s unlikely he’ll ever get them back. They’re at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, along with the Astoria and Henry’s remains.

Whitehurst was honored for his sacrifice when the Navy commissioned a ship in his honor — the destroyer USS Whitehurst, launched in 1943 with his own mother breaking the champagne bottle on the bow.

Whitehurst is also well remembered by the town. Many of his personal effects are held by Tryon Palace, while the local American Legion Post 539 is named partly in his honor — the Whitehurst-Ware Post. His official “ burial at sea” service was the result of Lt. Nicholas Hurley, an active duty member of the Whitehurst-Ware post. Hurley was serving on board the destroyer USS Sampson in 2012 while it was on duty in the Pacific. As fate would have it, the ship would be passing within three miles of the spot where the Astoria went down on Aug. 9 —the 70th anniversary of the battle.

The Sampson’s Captain, Commander D. D. Docummun, agreed to lay a wreath.

We are indebted to Robert Whitehurst who, while researching the Whitehurst Family genealogy, discovered an online record of this story from the New Bern, North Carolina, Sun Journal, dated March 24, 2013, and contributed it for use on this web site. mc

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