WW2 Fallen – Frank David Kimberly, US Navy

Frank David Kimberly was born August 2, 1916 in Cochran, (Bleckley County) Georgia (father Marion Lawrence Kimberly) and enlisted in the navy on June 17, 1935 in Macon, Georgia, at the age of 18.

He later served as a Water Tender Second Class aboard the USS Sturtevant, with an enlistment date of July 11, 1941 and being first on board on September 29, 1941. (A water tender is a petty officer rated crewman aboard a steam-powered ship who is responsible for tending to the fires and boilers in the ship's engine room.)

The ship was escorting convoys off the east coast beginning in mid-1940 and later in the Caribbean.

Frank died at sea on April 26, 1942 when the USS Sturtevant was sunk. The Sturtevant was a Clemson Class destroyer built in 1919. She sank after hitting an allied mine off Key West with a loss of 15 crew members (of a total crew compliment of 114). With his position deep in the ship, tending to the boilers, Frank would have been one of those more likely to killed in an explosion.

Records indicate that no one on board was made aware of the minefield location.

On 26 April 1942, the Sturtevant departed Key West in company with a convoy. Just over two hours out of port, a violent explosion lifted the ship’s stern m the water, but caused no apparent damage. Thinking herself under submarine attack the destroyer responded by dropping two depth charge barrages. About a minute after she dropped the second barrage of charges, a second detonation rocked the ship. She began to settle rapidly, but on an even keel. Minutes later, a third explosion ripped her keel apart beneath the after deckhouse. The midships section sank immediately, and the stern settled soon thereafter. The bow, curiously, remained above water for several hours. Finally, however, all but the crow’s nest disappeared beneath the waves.

Frank’s sister Ruby Kimberly Carroll applied for a headstone in his honor to be placed at the Bowers Cemetery in Empire Georgia in 1962.

References:

ancestry.com, US Headstone Applications for Military Veterans 1925-1963, US Navy Muster Rolls

++http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_USS_Sturtevant_DD240.html++

++https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?14570++; ++https://www.navy.mil/navydata/ships/destroyers/ddhist2.html++

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smart phone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.