In Service to America, Profile 19: Airman Ed Quigley Sr., U.S. Navy

Publisher’s Note: This is the final installment in this series in 19 parts by Gary Ledoux, who wanted to find a way to honor the service of Nashua veterans by retelling their stories. A big thank you to Gary for his diligence in organizing this series.

On April 24, 1945, Navy Airman Ed Quigley Sr. was in a unique position to witness one of the last confrontations of WWII when the U.S. Navy went up against a German U-Boat. On that day, Quigley was aboard the USS Bogue, an escort carrier (considerably smaller than your standard Navy aircraft carrier) that usually carried eight to ten aircraft and up to as many as 24 aircraft depending on the configuration of the aircraft and the mission. This type of carrier usually travelled with an array of other ships including destroyers. Their job was to protect merchant shipping in the North Atlantic and patrol that area for enemy submarines. From the time the U.S. entered WWII in December, 1941, the Germans sank nearly 500 merchant ships in the early part of 1942, until the US Navy started escorting the merchant ships to Europe. The merchant ships carried badly needed food, medicine and other supplies for Europe, some areas who had been under fire since 1939. By this point in the war, the larger carriers were all busy working their way across the Pacific against the Japanese. These small carriers and their convoy operated in the North Atlantic hunting German submarines.

On this particular day, a thick, dank fog surrounded the convoy. Pilots flying off the carrier would ordinarily be the ones to spot the German U-Boats. But with the thick fog, the aircraft just sat on the deck. Taking advantage of the fog and the side-lined planes, German U-Boat U-546 surfaced and was preparing to fire torpedoes at the USS Bogue. Alert sailors on the USS Frederick C. Davis saw the sub breaking the surface. The “Davis” turned and started for the sub. The sub came about and started firing torpedoes. The “Davis” was hit in the forward engine room on the port side causing an explosion. Five minutes later, the ship broke in two and went to the bottom. She carried a crew of 192 souls, but only 66 were rescued. This was the last Naval vessel sunk in the Battle of the Atlantic during WWII.

The “Davis” was an Edsall-class destroyer escort, built specifically for action during WWII and named after Frederick Curtice Davis, a Navy flyer who was killed by Japanese strafing while on the USS Nevada during the Pearl Harbor attack.

With that, the entire convoy turned on the sub. For the next 12 hours, the sub was fired upon and depth charges dropped on it. Finally, the sub came up, still fighting when it reached the surface. Combined gunfire from three destroyers finally took the fight out of the sub. A total of 33 German sailors were rescued and taken aboard the Bogue, including the sub’s captain, Paul Just.

Ed Quigley Jr. notes, “My father told me that members of the Bogue crew wanted to throw the Germans overboard for the loss of their ‘brothers-in-arms’ – but cooler heads prevailed. All in all I salute the men of the Frederick C. Davis who sacrificed their lives in the line of duty. If not for their gallant action, I probably would not be writing this today.”

Less than two weeks later, it was all over. Adolph Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945 and Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies on Monday, May 7, 1945. Not long after, Ed Quigley Sr. left the Navy and went on to the Nashua Post Office, first as a clerk, working his way up to Post Master where he served from 1975 to 1981.

Ed Quigley Jr. did some follow-up in this incident of April 24, 1945. He said that Captain Paul Just went on to become a businessman in West Germany after the war. He was even invited to visit the homes of some of the “Davis” survivors in the U.S. – a very charitable thing to do considering the animosities of that foggy day in 1945.

Below: Review all the profiles featured in our In Service to America stories, honoring Nashua war veterans.

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