MANNERT L. ABELE, LCDR, USN
Mannert Abele '26
Lucky Bag
From the 1926 Lucky Bag:
Mannert Lincoln Abele
Quincy, Massachusetts
"Abe" "Jim"
SAY, don't look so scared! Honest, we didn't mean to frighten you. You know way down in your heart that looks don't mean much. He really is good-natured and won't harm a soul.
Abe was a soccer man and one of Tom's favorites. He could show some real rough tricks if necessary as he did in Gibraltar when we played the Limies. Some of the Britishers wished they had never gotten in the game because Abe showed 'em how we played.
Jim always managed to fool the Ac Department, although sometimes they came very near catching up with him. Never suffering from love-sickness probably aided him in this way, although it prevented him from showing proper sympathy for the troubles of a roommate afflicted with all the worries of a true lover.
As one can see by glancing at the snapshot of his youthful days, Jim always was more or less salty, and had been introduced to the leeward life line before Youngster cruise.
"Call away the gig, and notify the Exec that I am going ashore."
Soccer Squad (4, 3, 2, 1), N(3, 2); Class Gym (2); Expert Rifleman.
Mannert Lincoln Abele
Quincy, Massachusetts
"Abe" "Jim"
SAY, don't look so scared! Honest, we didn't mean to frighten you. You know way down in your heart that looks don't mean much. He really is good-natured and won't harm a soul.
Abe was a soccer man and one of Tom's favorites. He could show some real rough tricks if necessary as he did in Gibraltar when we played the Limies. Some of the Britishers wished they had never gotten in the game because Abe showed 'em how we played.
Jim always managed to fool the Ac Department, although sometimes they came very near catching up with him. Never suffering from love-sickness probably aided him in this way, although it prevented him from showing proper sympathy for the troubles of a roommate afflicted with all the worries of a true lover.
As one can see by glancing at the snapshot of his youthful days, Jim always was more or less salty, and had been introduced to the leeward life line before Youngster cruise.
"Call away the gig, and notify the Exec that I am going ashore."
Soccer Squad (4, 3, 2, 1), N(3, 2); Class Gym (2); Expert Rifleman.
Loss
Abe was lost when USS Grunion (SS 216) was sunk by the armed Japanese freighter Kano Maru on July 30, 1942, approximately 10 miles northeast of Kiska in the Aleutian Islands. He was the boat's commanding officer.
Other Information
From researcher Kathy Franz:
At Quincy high school as a junior on January 6, 1920, he played center on the junior hockey team which defeated the seniors 1-0 on Butler’s Pond. “The Seniors experienced some hard luck when they shot the puck through their own goal by an accidental shot.” He was also in the debating society as a freshman and sophomore.
His wife was the former Catherine Eaton. Their children were Bruce, Bradford, and John. Catherine wrote personal letters of sympathy to the next of kin of all the Grunion’s officers and enlisted men.
His father Francis was a veterinarian, mother Addie, and brother Trescott. His uncles were Capt. Clarence Abele (‘1898,) U.S.N., and George W. Abele, a Boston attorney.
His wife was listed as next of kin; he was also survived by three sons. His sons found their father's boat in 2007.
LCDR Abele is listed on two cenotaphs. He has a memory marker in Arlington National Cemetery and is also listed at the Courts of the Missing in Hawaii.
Photographs
From the Lucky Bag
From The Boston Globe on October 5, 1942
From his high school yearbook
"Members of the Fourth Command Class at the Submarine Base, New London, Groton, Conn., in February 1942. Those present are, bottom row left to right: Lt. Cmdr. Abele; Lt. Cmdr. Thomas B. Klakring; Cmdr. Karl G. Hensel, Officer in Charge; Lt. Cmdr. George W. Patterson, Jr., Senior Assistant; and Lt. Cmdr. Jesse L. Hull. Top row, left to right: Lt. Cmdr. Howard W. Gilmore ['26]; Lt. Cmdr. Philip H. Ross; Lt. Cmdr. Arthur H. Taylor; Lt. Cmdr. Albert C. Burrows; and Lt. Cmdr. Leonard S. Mewhinney. (U.S. Navy Photograph 80-G-88577, National Archives and Records Administration, Still Pictures Division, College Park, Md.)"
Career
From the now-broken link http://www.fleetorganization.com/subcommandersclassyear2.html:
- Captain USS R-13 (SS-90) 30 May 1936 - 31 May 1939
- Instructor NROTC Unit Harvard University 1 Oct 1939 - 1 Jul 1940
- Captain USS S-31 (SS-136) 24 Sep 1940 - 31 Oct 1941
- Captain USS Grunion (SS-216) 11 Apr 1942 - Jul 1942
- Lieutenant 30 Jun 1936
- Lieutenant Commander 1 Dec 1940
From Hall of Valor:
The President of the United States of America takes pride in presenting the Navy Cross (Posthumously) to Lieutenant Commander Mannert Lincoln Abele (NSN: 0-60162), United States Navy, for extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession as Commanding Officer of the U.S.S. GRUNION (SS-216), during its FIRST War Patrol, in Alaskan Waters. Lieutenant Commander Abele conducted an aggressive and successful submarine war patrol from 30 June 1942 to 24 July 1942. He pressed home all attacks in such a skillful and resolute manner that he attacked and sank in one day, three enemy destroyers of the Towlekju Class. Despite severe anti-submarine measures, Lieutenant Commander Abele brought his ship safely through these counter attacks but was subsequently lost from an unknown cause. His courage and devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.
General Orders: Commander In Chief Pacific Fleet: Serial 25 (November 23, 1942)
Service: Navy
Rank: Lieutenant Commander
Full Biography
From Naval History and Heritage Command:
Mannert Lincoln Abele -- born in Quincy, Mass., on 11 July 1903, the son of Francis I. Abele, Jr., and Addie L. (Tupper) Abele -- attended Cranch Grammar School and three years at Quincy High School before enlisting in the U.S. Navy at the age of seventeen on 12 August 1920. Assigned to battleship Utah (BB-31) just before she departed for European duty, Abele attained the rank of apprentice seaman while training at Newport, R.I.
Detached from Utah in December 1921, Abele received orders back to take entrance examinations to the U.S. Naval Academy. Upon his appointment-at-large, he became a midshipman in June 1922. Nicknamed “Jim” (a name even his sons affectionately called him), Abele was a member of the Naval Academy’s soccer squad before graduating and being commissioned ensign on 3 June 1926. Two years later, he received promotion to lieutenant (junior grade); promoted to lieutenant on 30 June 1936; and to lieutenant commander on 1 December 1940.
Ens. Abele’s first assignment upon graduation was on board battleship Colorado (BB-45), serving until 7 January 1929. Applying for submarine school, he was accepted and reported to the Submarine Base, New London, Connecticut, for instruction. Completing the course several months later, he received assignment to S-23 (SS-138), a unit of Submarine Division 4, serving on board as engineering officer until April 1933.
Receiving orders for shore duty to the Bureau of Navigation, Navy Department, until 30 May 1936, Lt. (j.g.) Abele served first on board R-11 (SS-88) before accepting command of R-13 (SS-90). While commanding R-13, his commanding officer described him as “the ablest commanding officer in the division,” leading R-13 to receive the Navy’s coveted “E” for excellence award. From June 1939 – August 1940, the scholarly submariner served as Assistant Professor of Naval Science, in connection with the Naval Reserve Officers Training Command (NROTC) unit at Harvard University. One of Lt. Cmdr. Abele’s students, Endicott Peabody, an all-American football star, later served as Governor of Massachusetts.
Receiving orders to S-31 (SS-136), Lt. Cmdr. Abele commanded that boat (August 1940 – November 1941), before fitting out Grunion (SS-216), built at the Electric Boat Company, Groton, Ct., and assuming command of her upon her commissioning on 11 April 1942.
After her shakedown cruise out of New London, Grunion sailed for Pearl Harbor on 24 May 1942. A week later, on 3 June, Grunion arrived at Coco Solo, Panama, having transported 16 survivors of USAT Jack, victims of a torpedoing by German submarine U-558. Grunion resumed transiting the Panama Canal in early June, continuing to make way for Hawaii. Arriving in Oahu on 20 June, Cmdr. Abele soon received orders to the Aleutian Islands, and Grunion steamed out of Pearl Harbor on 30 June, for the western Aleutians.
On 10 July 1942, Grunion, reassigned to the waters north of Kiska, hunted enemy ships. (15 – 30 July), came under attack on 15 July from three unidentified Japanese vessels. Firing a spread of torpedoes at her tormentors, Grunion allegedly sank all three. Postwar records determined the “destroyers” to be enemy Submarine Chasers No, 25 and Submarine Chaser No, 27. Commander Abele received credit (and later a Navy Cross) for sending both to the bottom, as well as damaging the third, Submarine Chaser No, 26. In addition, Grunion (by some accounts) torpedoed and damaged the 8,572-ton freighter Kano Maru.
Receiving orders on 19 July 1942 to proceed with S-32 (SS-137), Triton (SS-201) and Tuna (SS-203), to patrol an area approaching Kiska’s harbor, Grunion and the three boats were to make way to Kiska by 22 July. Grunion reported an attack on unidentified “enemy ships” six miles south off Sirius Point, Kiska, on 28 July. Firing two torpedoes, Cmdr. Abele observed no explosions. Resuming duties in her patrol area, [the official Navy account] states an intensive increase in anti-submarine activity off Kiska caused Grunion’s recall to Dutch Harbor, Alaska, on 30 July 1942.
Grunion never arrived to Dutch Harbor and all communications to her went unanswered. Reported missing on 16 August 1942, the U.S. Navy presumed her lost on 5 October. Stricken from the Navy Register on 2 November, Grunion would remain missing for the next 65 years.
The Navy Cross citation for Cmdr. Abele, presented to his wife Catharine and sons, Bruce, Brad, and John, stated Abele availed himself “of every attack opportunity with alert skill and efficiency, (and) succeeded in sinking, in one day, three Japanese destroyers. Mrs. Abele was magnanimous in sharing news of the award with the families of Grunion’s lost crew. She wrote the next-of-kin of the men, declaring that the award belonged as much to their loved ones as to her husband.
The "Register of Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps" was published annually from 1815 through at least the 1970s; it provided rank, command or station, and occasionally billet until the beginning of World War II when command/station was no longer included. Scanned copies were reviewed and data entered from the mid-1840s through 1922, when more-frequent Navy Directories were available.
The Navy Directory was a publication that provided information on the command, billet, and rank of every active and retired naval officer. Single editions have been found online from January 1915 and March 1918, and then from three to six editions per year from 1923 through 1940; the final edition is from April 1941.
The entries in both series of documents are sometimes cryptic and confusing. They are often inconsistent, even within an edition, with the name of commands; this is especially true for aviation squadrons in the 1920s and early 1930s.
Alumni listed at the same command may or may not have had significant interactions; they could have shared a stateroom or workspace, stood many hours of watch together… or, especially at the larger commands, they might not have known each other at all. The information provides the opportunity to draw connections that are otherwise invisible, though, and gives a fuller view of the professional experiences of these alumni in Memorial Hall.
October 1926
January 1927
April 1927
October 1927
January 1928
January 1929
April 1929
July 1929
October 1929
January 1930
April 1930
October 1930
January 1933
April 1933
July 1933
October 1933
April 1934
July 1934
October 1934
January 1935
April 1935
October 1935
January 1936
April 1936
July 1936
January 1937
September 1937
January 1938
January 1939
October 1939
June 1940
November 1940
Namesake
USS Mannert L. Abele (DD 733) was named for Abe; the ship was sponsored by his widow and commissioned on July 4, 1944. The ship did not survive a year; she was destroyed by kamikaze attack on April 12, 1945 near Okinawa with the loss of 84 of her officers and men.
The "category" links below lead to lists of related Honorees; use them to explore further the service and sacrifice of alumni in Memorial Hall.
