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Piracy Warfare
l U-85 l
U-85 Background Briefing l
DD-147 Roper Briefing l
The Battle Begins
DD-147 U.S.S. Jesse Roper
General Mission Briefing
 Patrolling
the arena off the North Carolina coast was the USS Jesse Roper
(DD-147). She was similar to the USS Jacob Jones (DD-130), the
destroyer that was torpedoed and sunk by the U-578 only six
weeks earlier; only eleven men survived out of a crew of one
hundred forty-five. The Roper was a flush-deck, four-stack
destroyer built a generation earlier, in 1919.
The Roper was no stranger to war. On April 1 she came upon the
survivors of the passenger-freighter City of New York; the
people had been adrift in rafts and lifeboats for three days.
One woman gave birth in a lifeboat, and after their rescue named
her son Jesse Roper in honor of the ship that saved their lives.
On April 13, in addition to her normal complement the Roper had
on board the Commander of Destroyer Division Fifty-four,
Commander Stanley Cook Norton. The evident U-boat activity
concentrated off the Diamond Shoals kept the crew on their toes,
and the lookouts alert. Understandably, Lieutenant Commander
Hamilton Wilcox Howe conned his ship with extreme caution.
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