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Petje USS Stephen W. Groves FFG-29
"About 4:40 p.m. the enemy was coming in fast, and the carrier sent up its few remaining planes, some of them already battle-scarred. They headed straight for the enemy. The fight ended at sunset, when the last remaining Japanese plane was shot from the sky. Some of our boys did not return, but they left a memory that time can never dim."
Thus read an official account of one of the great air engagements of the Battle of Midway during World War II. Stephen W. Groves, a 25- year-old Navy Ensign from East Millinocket, Maine, was one of the American flyers who did not return after the day-long battle on 4 June 1942.
Other historical accounts of the battle show that Ensign Groves took off nine times from his carrier on that fateful day, and that his was one of six American planes that fought off a vastly superior Japanese force that was trying to finish off the damaged carrier USS YORKTOWN. The small group was credited with shooting down 14 enemy planes and causing six others to retreat.
For his deeds in the crucial battle, the young Maine flyer was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism.
The commissioning of the guided missile frigate USS STEPHEN W. GROVES demonstrates that time did not dim the memory of this American hero and, in effect, fulfills a promise the Navy made to the Groves family shortly after the ensign was declared missing-in-action. A destroyer, being constructed in Boston, was to have been named for Groves, but it was scrapped when the war ended.
Ensign Groves was a 1934 graduate of Schenck High School in East Millinocket, and received a Mechanical Engineering Degree from the University of Maine in 1939. He joined the Navy in December of 1940, and was commissioned in August of 1941. He boarded the carrier HORNET in December of that year. The HORNET began to transport Doolittle's Bombers to Japanese waters in April of 1942, setting the stage for the Battle of Midway, considered one of the most crucial Allied victories of the war.
Ensign Groves was the first East Millinocket serviceman to be killed in World War II. Today the American Legion Post in the town is named the Feeney-Groves Post, partially in his memory.
FFG-29 General Specifications
Class: Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate
Named for: Ensign Stephen W. Groves (1917-1942)
Complement: 15 Officers and 190 Enlisted
Displacement: 4100 tons
Length: 453 feet
Beam: 45 feet
Flank Speed: over 29 knots
Range: 5 000 nautical miles
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