my father was jackie (jack) preston potter. he was a member of the naval armed guard. on his certificate for crossing the equater his first name was spelled jakie, so there may be some error with the navy records. i know one ship he sailed on was the stephen vincent bennett which survived the war and went on to the scrap yards. i remember him telling me about being sunk i think twice. i dont remember the names of the ships. he took his armed guard training in brooklyn. i know he spent time in the south pacific and was hit by kamakazees. we have pictures of him on front on the sphynx in egypt and i remember him discussing the gulf of aden and africa. wish i had recorded all that. if anyone remembers him or has data please help. thanks mike
Re: my father
Posted by Melinda on June 4, 2009, 10:48 pm, in reply to "my father"
Mike, I'm sorry that I'm not very good at helping with information like this, but I'm sure someone will come up with something. Please check back soon and post any new information you may find.
My father was in the AG and I, like you, wish I had recorded his information and stories.
Re: my father
Posted by mike on June 5, 2009, 6:38 pm, in reply to "Re: my father"
thanks for the response. i'm a bit surprised no one has come up with anything yet. i've looked at the roster of listed armed guard veterans and dont see my dad's name. that makes me wonder how many are out there who are not credited. the subject has been in my blood all my life. i now spend my spare time diving the wwII wrecks off florida. check out cities service empire on the net. its a long running story with numbers of twists. please keep looking mike
Re: my father
Posted by Ron Carlson on June 6, 2009, 12:40 pm, in reply to "Re: my father"
Mike,
Thank you for your messages.
Keep in mind that although there were nearly 145,000 men who served in the Navy Armed Guard, many or most of them are no longer with us. Of those who are still living, a sizeable number probably do not have the knowledge, skill or interest in searching for information about the Armed Guard on the internet, or even know of this website. The odds that anyone reading your message would have known your father are actually quite slim. But you never know.
The list of Armed Guard personnel on this website is in no way a comprehensive list. The list is only of men (or sometimes their widows) who have become members of the U.S.N. Armed Guard World War II Veterans Association sometime in the last 20 years or so. If your father was not a member of the Association, he is probably not found on the Armed Guard website.
If you do not have other records pertaining to your father, you may be able to obtain his full service record from the National Archives. Please see this page on the Armed Guard website for information on obtaining service records: http://armed-guard.com/searchmil.html. His full service record should show the ships to which he was assigned, plus other significant information about his service. Note that the one ship you identify was probably named the Stephen Vincent Benet, not Bennett as you have it.
If you are able to identify the ships to which he was assigned and the applicable dates from his full service record, you may be able to obtain additional information on each ship, again from the National Archives. The web page identified above has information on other records maintained by the Archives that may be of interest, such as Armed Guard officers' reports.
Finally, you give your father's first name as Jack or Jackie. Was either name his formal given name? Or was his given name John? I have found the record of a John P. Potter, Jr., an Armed Guard seaman first class, arriving in New York City on September 2, 1944, from London, aboard a ship named A. Frank Lever. (This information comes from a search of www.ancestry.com; information about subscriptions to Ancestry.com is available on the same web page noted above.) If this is your father, I can supply a list of the other 30 Armed Guard sailors on that voyage, although I would not know whether any of them are still living, nor would I have contact information on any of them.
Ron Carlson, Webmaster Armed Guard website www.armed-guard.com
Re: my father
Posted by mike on June 7, 2009, 10:41 am, in reply to "Re: my father"
hi Ron, I understand all points mentioned. additionally, please dont take my comments as derogatory. you and this sight do a great job. had i been more prudent in my younger years i would likley be able to privide great input to your efforts rather than ask for help. i dont know that my dad was known as john, i doubt it. however, i can imagine records and names in those early years may have been less than perfect. i do remember he boxed onboard. it seems there were competitions between ships and he must have represented his ship in his weight class 120 to 130. please keep up the search. it means something to me. my father went on to transfer to the army air borne after the second war and went to korea and vietnam. he was heavily decorated, at his funeral the military neglected to give him his rifle salute and that still bothers me. thanks mike