Memorial Day Remembrance: Lieutenant John C. Isham
BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — Continuing a tradition of recalling on Memorial Day past water polo athletes who were lost in the line od duty and competed at league institutions, the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) remembers former United States Naval Academy water polo athlete Lt. John C. Isham.
A 1938 graduate of the Naval Academy and a native of Redlands, Calif., Isham competed in water polo at Navy during his sophomore, junior and senior years. A four-year member of the Naval Academy orchestra – including serving as director as a senior – he posted the highest grade in his Naval Academy class in both navigation and seamanship.
Following his graduation in 1938, he went to the Astoria immediately as assistant navigation Officer. Two later promotions advanced him to the rank of lieutenant, senior grade.
A participant In every major naval engagement since the outbreak of war in the Pacific, Isham was cruising at sea when Pearl Harbor was attacked, but later he engaged in the Americans’ raid on the Marshall and Gilbert islands, the battle of the Coral Sea, the Battle of Midway and various fights in the Solomons Islands area. As gunnery officer, on the heavy cruiser Astoria, he was with a landing party that set up a fire control station on Tulagi when the Astoria was sunk. A shell that demolished his quarters on the Astoria would have killed him if he had been there. He lost all of his possessions and was Immediately reassigned to cruiser the USS Atlanta.
Isham,was killed in action on November 13, 1942, when the Atlantic was destroyed during the Battle of Guadalcanal. The ship was scuttled following damage from Japanese torpedoes and accidental gunfire from the USS San Francisco.
Isham was lost after he had been granted leave, which would have permitted him to visit his wife in Honolulu. The order to give him liberty was in a mail sack aboard the USS. Astoria when the Japanese sunk the ship at Tulagi on August 9, 1942. The mail bag floated to the surface and was recovered. Meanwhile, Isham had been transferred to the Atlanta and could not be released when his new ship went into Solomon islands action.
