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Claud Ashton Jones was born on 7 October 1885 in Fire Creek WV, was appointed to the US Naval Academy in 1903 and graduated with the Class of 1906. He served in the battleships Indiana and New Jersey and received his commission as an Ensign in 1908. Between 1909 and 1915, Jones was assigned to the training ship Severn and the armored cruiser North Carolina, received post-graduate engineering education at the Naval Academy and Harvard University, and served in the battleships Ohio, New York and North Dakota. He was promoted to Lieutenant (Junior Grade) in 1911 and Lieutenant in 1914. Lt. Jones was severely injured when the armored cruiser Tennessee was wrecked by a tsunami on 29 August 1916. After recovering he served ashore in industrial positions until after the end of World War I. Years later, in recognition of his heroic conduct in rescuing crewmen from steam-filled engineering spaces, then-Commander Jones was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Lieutenant Commander Jones was designated as a specialist engineering duty officer in 1918 and in 1920-1921, as a Commander, was Engineer Officer of the new battleship Tennessee. During the 1920s and into the early 1930s he had two Navy Department tours with the Bureau of Engineering, served in Europe as an Assistant Naval Attache and was senior engineering officer with the Battle Fleet. He was promoted to Captain in 1933, again while on duty with the Bureau of Engineering. Captain Jones had machinery and materiel inspection assignments for the rest of the decade, then returned to Washington DC to serve as Head of the Shipbuilding Division of the Bureau of Ships.
As a Rear Admiral, he was the Bureau's Assistant Chief and, for much of World War II, Assistant Chief of Procurement and Material. He became Director of the Naval Experiment Station at Annapolis MD from September 1944 until the end of 1945. Retired in June 1946, Rear Admiral Jones died at Charleston WV on 8 August 1948.
USS Claud Jones (DE 1033) was the first ship named in his honor. (US Navy photo #NH48727 from the US Naval Historical Center) |
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