Frederick Curtice Davis

Ensign Frederick Curtice Davis enlisted in the Naval Reserve on July 7, 1939, and was commissioned as an ensign on Sept. 4, 1940, after flight training at Escambia Naval Air Station and Pensacola Naval Air Station. In 1941, Ensign Davis was assigned to the USS Nevada (BB-36) at Pearl Harbor. Under normal circumstances, Ensign Frederick Davis's job was to fly the OS2U-3 observation planes that could be launched from the USS Nevada's catapults, but that changed on Dec. 7, 1941. As the Nevada sat in Battleship Row at Pearl Harbor, Japanese aircraft attacked the American installation and began bombing the ships in port there. Seeing this and knowing the Nevada didn't have any planes on its catapults, Ensign Davis rushed to an anti-aircraft gun on the bow of the ship and began driving off the onslaught of aircraft, until a burst of Japanese gunfire silenced his position. The Nevada survived the attack on Pearl Harbor and took the fight to the Axis at multiple battles throughout the war, including Attu, Normandy, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. For his actions on Dec. 7, 1941, Ensign Frederick C. Davis was awarded the nation's second-highest honor for valor in combat, the Navy Cross. In September 1942, the Navy announced it would be naming a Destroyer Escort after him, as well. The USS Frederick C. Davis (DE-136) was launched on Jan. 24, 1943, and was sponsored by Davis's sister, Dorothy H. Robins. The USS Frederick C. Davis saw heavy combat in North Africa, Italy, and Southern France. Sadly, on April 24, 1945, only two weeks before Nazi Germany surrendered, the USS Frederick C. Davis was sunk by the German U-Boat U-546, making it the last US vessel sunk by Nazi Germany during WWII. Seeing this, the other Destroyer Escorts in the flotilla chased the U-546 down and sunk it that same day.