Courage can take more than one form — and can be recognized as such even by an enemy unaccustomed to such behavior. Such was the case with Dick Antrim of the United States Navy destroyer Pope, who snatched his own sort of victory from the jaws of defeat.
Born in in the landlocked town of Peru, Indiana, on Oct. 17, 1907, Richard Nott Antrim chose a life at sea when he joined the Naval Reserve on June 28, 1926 and, in 1927, entered the U.S. Naval Academy.
Graduating in June 1931, Ensign Antrim began work in the Eleventh Naval District offices in San Diego, California, and followed that with a succession of shipboard and land assignments. In July 1936, Antrim was promoted to lieutenant and in September he completed training as a naval aviator of lighter-than-air craft (balloons and dirigibles) at Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey.
Made an executive officer in December 1939 to Lt. Cmdr. Welford C. Blinn aboard USS Pope (DD-225), attached to Destroyer Division 29 of the Asiatic Fleet.
It was in that capacity that he entered combat, as part of the ABDA (American, British, Dutch and Australian) Command, an international gathering of warships trying to oppose the Japanese invasion of the Netherlands East Indies.
On Jan. 24, 1942, Pope and three other ageing tin cans, John D. Ford (DD-228), Parrott (DD-218) and Paul Jones (DD-230), slipped into an enemy troop convoy enroute to Balikpapan and torpedoed the Kuretake Maru, as well as contributing to the sinking of Nana Maru, Sumonoura Maru, Tatsukami Maru and patrol boat P-37.
Although 23,496 tons made for a modest total of shipping and did not prevent the Japanese seizure of Balikpapan and its oil fields, it was the first naval battle won by American warships since the war began in 1941.
Unfortunately for the Allies, there would be no further such successes, with Pope fortunate just to survive defeats at the Makassar Strait on Feb. 4, the Badung Strait on Feb. 19 and the decisive Japanese victory in the Java Sea on Feb. 27. The next day, what remained of the ABDA fleet tried to break out of the Indies, with the Royal Navy heavy cruiser HMS Exeter departing with destroyers HMS Encounter and USS Pope in attendance.
As the trio tried to make their way west, they encountered heavy cruisers Nachi and Haguro and when they tried to escape their Japanese foe, they was spotted by a cruiser-based floatplane.
The Allied vessels then encountered heavy cruisers Ashigara and Myoko, with three destroyers. Exeter and Encounter were sunk, but Pope escaped in a rain squall.
Blinn now called on his damage control officer, Lt. Antrim, to effect emergency repairs. He succeeded for the most part, except for the brick walls of No. 3 boiler, which collapsed from the concussion.
Pope was then dive-bombed by six Aichi D3A1s from the light carrier Ryujo. The Pope’s crew fought back with its single 3-inch gun until it jammed.
None of the enemy bombs struck home, but at 12:30 that afternoon, with the cruisers again closing in for the kill, Blinn saw no alternative but to order abandon ship. Ashigara and Myoko finished the doomed destroyer at 4:00 p.m.
Remarkably, only one crewman was killed — by shrapnel while setting a scuttling charge. Although painfully wounded himself, Antrim organized the motor whaleboat and life rafts to keep the crew together and alive for almost three days before they were picked up by the Japanese destroyer Inazuma on March 1.
It was after the crews were landed at Makassar Prisoner of War Camp, Celebes, that their ordeal fully began.
In April, Lt. Allan J. Fisher was savagely beaten by a guard after he failed to bow “low enough.” He was then subsequently condemned to 50 lashes with a hawser.
After 15 strokes Fisher lost consciousness, at which three guards began kicking him. At that point, Antrim stepped forward and offered to take the rest of the officer’s punishment, putting his own life on the line.
According to his Medal of Honor citation:
Acting instantly on behalf of a naval officer who was subjected to a vicious clubbing by a frenzied Japanese guard venting his insane wrath upon the helpless prisoner, Comdr. (then Lt.) Antrim boldly intervened, attempting to quiet the guard and finally persuading him to discuss the charges against the officer. With the entire Japanese force assembled and making extraordinary preparations for the threatened beating, and with the tension heightened by 2,700 Allied prisoners rapidly closing in, Comdr. Antrim courageously appealed to the fanatic enemy, risking his own life in a desperate effort to mitigate the punishment. When the other had been beaten unconscious by 15 blows of a hawser and was repeatedly kicked by three soldiers to a point beyond which he could not survive, Comdr. Antrim gallantly stepped forward and indicated to the perplexed guards that he would take the remainder of the punishment, throwing the Japanese completely off balance in their amazement and eliciting a roar of acclaim from the suddenly inspired Allied prisoners.
Antrim also devised a means of communication whereby the camp’s slit trenches were ingeniously arranged in the large letters “US,” so that Allied aircraft flying overhead would know where the POWs were — and which, if figured out by the enemy, could have cost Antrim his life.
After the Japanese surrender in September 1945, all but 27 of Pope’s crew survived to be repatriated — fatalities mostly due to malnutrition.
For his role throughout, Antrim was awarded the Bronze Star with “V” device. He was also made an acting commander in November 1942, a grade that became permanent in 1949.
Postwar, both he and Blinn received the Navy Cross for their actions during the Battle of the Java Sea and on July 30, 1947, President Harry Truman decorated Antrim with the Medal of Honor — just one of two POWs awarded the honor during World War II.
During the ceremony Truman, with some understatement, remarked, “You did a mighty fine thing.”
Dick Antrim continued his postwar career, making captain in July 1950. Failing health compelled him to retire with the final rank of rear admiral. He died on March 8, 1969, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
On Sept. 26, 1981, Mary Jean Antrim christened the guided missile frigate USS Antrim (FFG-20), named for her late husband. It served until 1998. In December 2008, divers located the remains of destroyer Pope.
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