Son of farmer Enoch Donovan and Martha K. Steelman, Reuben Donovan (5/24/1915 – 4/6/1945) grew up on a farm between Milton and Georgetown. He married Phoebe Coffin sometime around 1940; it was her second marriage, and the youngest of her children became Reuben’s stepson. By the time Reuben was called up by the draft he was the father of a toddler daughter and twins not yet a year old. The family made ends meet somehow; he worked as a laborer on highway maintenance crews, and she did piecework for a basket manufacturer.
Drafted in 1943, he was assigned to the Navy and underwent training at the Great Lakes Naval Station and later at Bainbridge, MD. In May of 1944, he was sent to the Pacific theater with the rank of Seaman 1st Class and assigned to the U.S.S. Newcomb (DD-586), a destroyer.
On April 6, 1945, the Newcomb, while off Iejima (sometime spelled Ie Shima) in the Ryukyu archipelago, was attacked by multiple Japanese aircraft and hit at least 5 times, including once by a kamikaze that rammed into the ship. The attacks resulted in 18 sailors killed, 25 missing, and 64 wounded. These two sentences do not begin to describe the ferocious struggle for survival against Japanese air attacks that lasted for hours and nearly sank the destroyer. Only the tenacity of the crew, determined to prevent the ship from sinking, ultimately saved her.
Reuben was among the 18 KIA in these attacks. His remains were returned to Milton in April of 1949, and a funeral held on the 13th of that month, with the participation of American Legion Post #20 and the local V. F. W.
Sources
https://www.newspapers.com/image/501200423/?terms=U.S.S.%20Newcomb&match=1
Thank you of the sacrifices made by these brave men and we can know the true meaning of Memorial Day.
I greatly appreciate feedback like yours! Are you related to the William Mears whovowo tan a barber shop on Federal Street?
Thanks for the info on Enoch’s son. I have been doing research on the Avery / Issac Clendaniel Cemetery west of Ellendale on Beaver Dam Rd. I have been doing land research, Enoch was the property owner in 1917 and is buried in the Ellendale Community Cemetery. Not able to get into the Deeds office in Georgetown since COVID . I believe the property might be according the Beers Map of 1896 was in the hands of a Clendaniel not sure at this point which of the 5 listed on the map. This Cemetery is listed on the death certificate of the majority services preformed by S. J. Wilson on Son of Milton.