WILLIAM P. HODNETT, JR., LCDR, USN

William Hodnett, Jr. '40

Date of birth: November 27, 1918

Date of death: December 3, 1944

Age: 26

Lucky Bag

From the 1940 Lucky Bag:

WILLIAM PHILIP HODNETT, JR.

Martinsville, Virginia

Bill

A true Virginian, Bill's neatness made him most desirable as a roommate. His happiest moments were spent in participating in arguments, regardless of the subject. Athletic activities included wrestling, football, and baseball; and in sports, as in all things, he was ever a good worker. Bill's troubles with the Academic as well as the Executive Department were several: his main weakness being — "Parlez-vous francais?" Little difficulty was experienced with the fairer sex, except an occasional encounter with those above the Mason-Dixon line. Here's wishing you the best, Bill, you will make your own breaks.

Baseball 40, 4; M.P.O.

WILLIAM PHILIP HODNETT, JR.

Martinsville, Virginia

Bill

A true Virginian, Bill's neatness made him most desirable as a roommate. His happiest moments were spent in participating in arguments, regardless of the subject. Athletic activities included wrestling, football, and baseball; and in sports, as in all things, he was ever a good worker. Bill's troubles with the Academic as well as the Executive Department were several: his main weakness being — "Parlez-vous francais?" Little difficulty was experienced with the fairer sex, except an occasional encounter with those above the Mason-Dixon line. Here's wishing you the best, Bill, you will make your own breaks.

Baseball 40, 4; M.P.O.

Loss

Bill was lost in USS Cooper (DD 695) during the Battle of Ormoc Bay on December 3, 1944. He was the executive officer.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz: "Named to the Naval Academy by Congressman Thomas G. Burch."

From a now-defunct website on the History of Class of 1940:

Bill spent his brief naval career in the Pacific. In the early part of World War II, he saw action in the vicinity of the Aleutian Islands, before returning to the United States for training prior to his being ordered as Executive Officer of a new destroyer, USS COOPER, launched at Kearney, New Jersey on 9 February, 1944. COOPER joined the fleet in the Pacific, and was also to have a short career. Around midnight on the night of 2-3 December, 1944, COOPER and two other destroyers were patrolling Ormoc Bay on the west side of Leyte Island in the Philippines. Japanese forces were trying to reinforce their Leyte garrison through the port of Ormoc. First, the destroyers were attacked by enemy aircraft, but the planes were beaten off by AA fire; COOPER shot down two dive bombers. At 0002, COOPER made her first surface contact and opened fire at 12,000 yards on an enemy destroyer close inshore, COOPER closing in fast and raking the Japanese ship from stern to stern for eight minutes until it caught fire and began to sink. Next, COOPER detected another one or two small transport ships to the south, again closing and opening fire. At least one of these ships, with troops on board, was sunk. At 1217, either a mine or a torpedo struck COOPER amidships; she listed 45 degrees, broke in two and sank within seconds, with the loss of half on board, ten officers and 161 crew members -- LCDR Hodnett went down with the ship. The survivors, who were rescued after 15 hours in the water, praised their Executive Officer for his stern insistence on wearing life jackets at battle stations; Bill lost his own life, but his orders saved the lives of many others. For this and other vital actions by Bill during the battle, the Secretary of the Navy posthumously awarded him the Bronze Star Medal.
Bill met and married Ruth Hanson early in the war; she was a nurse at the Bremerton Naval Hospital. They had one son, William Philip Hodnett III. Ruth now lives in Martinsville, Virginia.

His wife was listed as next of kin. William has a memory marker in Virginia; his wife is buried there.

Photographs

From the Lucky Bag

Navy Directories & Officer Registers

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.