Kilgore, TX lies right in the heart of the Pine Curtain of East Texas, within 30 miles of Tyler, Longview, Marshall. Kilgore was on its way to ghost town status in 1930 with a population of only 500, until the discovery of the “East Texas Oil Field” changed the fortunes of the town overnight. By the mid-1930s, Kilgore’s population surpassed 12,000. The East Texas Oil Museum on the campus of Kilgore College tells the story of this town in the 1930s.
The 1930s brought a new Roo to Sherman when Richard Earl (R.E.) St. John decided to enroll at Austin College. St. John was a history major, with an interest in international history. This focus led him to the AC International Relations Club, where he eventually became a Vice President. St. John graduated from AC in 1937 with a B.A., spending an extra year in Sherman to earn his 1938 Master’s in Education.
St. John was an athlete, lettering in basketball (1934) and football (1933-35). He was a member of the 1935 Texas Conference Champion Kangaroos, who earned that title with a Thanksgiving Day defeat of rival Trinity in Sherman. St. John, a halfback, earned acclaim from Dallas sportswriters in 1934 in a game against SMU. Despite a loss to the Mustangs (who would win the NCAA national championship one year later), St. John was named “outstanding man on the field” that day in Dallas.
St. John’s AC degree took him into the world of teaching & coaching. He was hired as a history teacher at Kilgore HS and as an assistant coach for the Kilgore Bulldogs on the gridiron. Kilgore had a new football stadium that year, thanks in part to the flow of East Texas Oil revenue. St. John showed his mettle over the next three years; the town of Kilgore agreed. In 1941, St. John was named the head coach of Kilgore football.
Under St. John, The Kilgore Bulldogs achieved new heights of success in the tough world of East Texas football. The Bulldogs contended for the playoffs with a 7-2-1 record, earning wins against Athens, Texarkana, & Longview. 6,000 fans were in attendance in Longview as Kilgore easily defeated the Lobos on their home field.
The Kilgore-Tyler game in late November was awaited with great anticipation, and the Kilgore News Herald wrote about it. On November 16, 1941, an article mentioned that the Kilgore Mayor had named Thursday, November 20th as an official holiday in order to facilitate travel for St. John’s Bulldogs. A headline just above that proclamation reminded Americans of a war which had not yet swallowed the country: “Axis U-Boat Warfare Spreads to the Mediterranean.”
A defeat to Tyler eliminated Kilgore from the Texas HS playoffs, but the Bulldogs could still hang their heads high. On December 12th, five days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, St. John awarded 18 Letters to Kilgore Bulldog players for their work during the 1941 season. That same day, Richard Earl St. John left Kilgore and enlisted in the United States Navy.
St. John’s Navy training proceeded briskly, and his leadership skills were recognized by his superiors. He was appointed Midshipman on August 7, 1942, and was commissioned Ensign on October 21, 1942. On January 11, 1943, Ensign Richard E. St. John received his WW2 marching orders: he was to serve on the USS Borie, fighting Nazi U-Boats in the North Atlantic.
The “Battle of the Atlantic” was the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, lasting from 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. The war was a “tonnage” war, with a goal of supplying the United Kingdom, the last allied holdout in Europe, with more tonnage of military & civilian goods than the Third Reich could eliminate. American destroyers like the USS Borie were tasked with escorting supply ships via convoys and engaging Nazi U-Boats determined to destroy those supply lines. The story of the Battle of the Atlantic is told in the 2020 movie “Greyhound,” starring Tom Hanks.
After Dunkirk, Churchill had famously declared that Brits “shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender.” But it is the end of the Prime Minister’s speech which points to the absolute necessity of the allies winning the Battle of the Atlantic. Churchill concluded his remarks by declaring that even in the event of subjugation the UK would “carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.” In fact, it was Churchill himself who deliberately coined the phrase “Battle of the Atlantic” as a continuation of the “Battle of Britain” in order to emphasize its importance.
Richard St. John’s service in the Battle of the Atlantic began in earnest in early 1943, as part of an antisubmarine Task Group that included the Borie. After training in the Caribbean, the USS Borie completed three trans-Atlantic patrols within the group, providing support for sister ships in their pursuit and sinking of German U-Boats. For these three patrols, crew members of the Borie were awarded the President Unit Citation for extraordinary heroism in action. The fourth patrol of the Borie in late 1943, however, would far exceed the ones which came before.
On November 1, 1943, USS Borie Commander Charles Hutchins spotted the German U-Boat U-405 on radar and moved to directly engage in darkness, rough seas, high winds, and poor visibility. The Borie successfully avoided a U-405 torpedo, and then forced the U-Boat to the surface with accurately placed “depth changes.” At this point in the battle, the USS Borie had the upper hand and looked to finish the job. But circumstances were about to turn this battle into one of the most unique in naval history.
The Borie closed in to ram the U-405, in a standard move to finish off the vessel and sink it. But high winds and 30-foot waves lifted the Borie’s bow onto the deck of the U-Boat at the last moment. The ship and the destroyer became stuck, with neither able to disengage. Permanently locked together thousands of miles from land, the conflict between U-405 and the Borie suddenly became a land battle on the high seas.
Because of the proximity between the two and the inability to maneuver, the big guns and shells on both vessels became worthless. Small arms fire…….tommy guns, rifles, shotguns, even flare pistols…….took their place instead. Fortunately, crew members of the Borie had trained for this exact situation just one week earlier. Ensign St. John was well prepared when he ordered his unit to engage in a battle that suddenly looked more like a clash on the beaches of Normandy.
But the USS Borie held the high ground, which meant the American ship still held the advantage. The Borie’s big search light became essential, as it was tactically turned on and off to benefit the Allied side. Ensign St. John and the sailors under his command concentrated their fire on the submarines deck machine gun nests. If occupied, the nests would have been deadly to the Borie’s now damaged hull. But St. John’s crew kept them unoccupied, patiently dispatching each Nazi on the high seas who made a suicidal effort to man them.
The tense battle continued for hours throughout the night, with the U-405 bearing most of the impact. At 3 a.m., rough seas finally dislodged the two vessels. The Borie had endured significant damage to its flooded engine room, and its speed was reduced to less than that of the U-405. Because of the damage, the worthless guns at close range, and the inability of the U-Boat to submerge, Captain Hutchins turned off the Borie’s search light in an attempt to encourage an escape by the U-Boat. That U-405 did attempt to flee. Hutchins then turned the search light back on and launched a final barrage of shells to sink the U-Boat:
“When the submarine sank, there was a yell that went up from all hands. It probably could be heard in Berlin. The men were clasping each other and patting each other on the back. Heretofore their one dream had been to catch a submarine, depth charge him, bring him to the surface, and then sink him with gunfire. This particular action more than justified their hopes.”
But the celebration was woefully premature. The USS Borie was dying, slowly sinking in rough weather into the 30-degree North Atlantic Ocean. Hutchins radioed a mayday, which was answered by an American destroyer in the area: the USS Goff. The Goff arrived at the moment the Borie was slipping below the surface. Hutchins gave the order to “abandon ship;” St. John and his fellow sailors jumped into the icy waters below.
In the warm, placid waters of the Caribbean, the rescue of the Borie crew might have been textbook. But St. John was in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic, with high winds creating mammoth waves that rocked the rescue vessels. The only way for the Goff to save the Borie crew was by lowering nets alongside the side of the ship and encouraging the sailors to swim, grab, and climb up. It was a tall order, as the Borie sailors were suffering from the exhaustion of battle, dislocation caused by of the wind & waves, and hypothermia-induced delirium. Nevertheless, St. John made it to the Goff, placed his hands on the netting, and ascended halfway up the rescue ship.
And that’s when he turned around and looked down.
Richard E. St. John looked down and saw his fellow sailors in desperation, struggling to stay afloat and close to being swept away. He jumped back into the icy waters, grabbed a total of four seaman one-by-one, guided them to the netting, and then went back for more. He never made it back with the fifth. Richard E. St. John drowned, a casualty of the North Atlantic. Alongside St. John, 26 other Americans failed to reach the safety of the USS Goff and were lost at sea.
Newspapers from around the state wrote glowingly of the sacrifices made by St. John during the battle and subsequent rescue:
Waco: “Texan a Hero of Battle of Borie and Nazi Subs”
Fort Worth: “Texan Lost in Action wins Praise of Ensign on Borie”
Longview: “Ensign Richard E. St. John, Lost in Action, showed his Courage, Loyalty”
Tyler: “Navy Officially Tells of St. John’s Heroism”
Kilgore: “St. John Dies Saving 4. Friend Tells How He Went Back to Rescue Shipmates”
From St. John’s friend, Ensign Robert Jefferies:
“Ensign [Robert] Jefferies, survivor of the Borie battle, told…how St. John, his closest friend, died to save four shipmates, the United Press reported. ‘St. John was halfway up the side of the destroyer when he saw a group of four men too far gone to help themselves on board,’ he said. ‘Exhausted as he must have been, he dropped back into the sea with them and helped each of them aboard.’ St. John failed to regain the safety of the destroyer himself and drowned in the storm sea, Jefferies said.”
The Kilgore Stadium where St. John coached in 1941 still stands today. It’s used by both the Kilgore HS Bulldogs and the Kilgore College Rangers. But the stadium’s name has changed. On November 1, 1947, the four-year anniversary of St. John’s death in the Atlantic, the city of Kilgore renamed the stadium “R. E. St. John Memorial Stadium.” The faculty, students, and parents of Kilgore HS filled the stadium to capacity as the Board of Trustees made the declaration official at game time. The Kilgore High School band concluded the ceremony by playing the National Anthem.
The Kilgore Herald newspaper revisited the name of the home of Bulldog & Ranger football in 2016:
“What’s In a Name? The name R.E. St. John invokes, for many, memories of football games, soccer, or even Kilgore High School graduations gone by. Back in the 2004 season – yes, the 2004 season in which Kilgore’s football program went 16-0 and claimed the UIL Class 4A championship – John Slagle, now a KISD school board member, was asked to speak at a KHS pep rally the weekend of Veteran’s Day. Slagle said he struggled with what topic he would address the crowd but wanted it to be a little longer and a little more substantial than ‘Go ‘Dogs.’ So Slagle did some research on the namesake of R.E. St. John Memorial Stadium, and he uncovered quite a story.”
“The Bulldog’s football program was just six years old when St. John became its head coach in 1941. St. John, a former Austin College standout, guided Kilgore to a 7-2-1 record that season. But that December, with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, America had a call to arms, and Coach St. John heeded that call just five days after that Pearl Harbor attack. The Bulldogs have had 17 head coaches since St. John, and great success. Yet the ‘coach for just a year’ remains one of the most revered figures in Kilgore High School sports history. And much of it was due to what St. John did away from the field of play.”
For his heroic actions in the Battle of the Atlantic, Richard E. St. John was awarded the Purple Heart by the US Navy. The 1957 movie “The Enemy Below,” starring Robert Mitchum, is based upon the conflict between the USS Borie and the German U-Boat St. John and his crew defeated. A 1943 painting of the action between the Borie and the U-405 by Coast Guard artist Hunter Wood sits today in the National Archives.
St. John was memorialized in the 1944 AC Chromascope alongside 8 other fallen Roos during the conflict: “The memory of those men who have already given their lives in this World War II shall not soon fade away. Their courage and fighting spirit but typify their Alma Mater.” A plaque of St. John hangs today in the Austin College “A” Room, alongside championship trophies throughout the decades. The plaque reads: “In Memoriam: Richard St. John symbolized those brave men who sacrificed their lives in order that we might today enjoy the freedoms we hold so dear.”
I was a senior in High School in 1987, following the AC football team in newspapers from afar while knowing I would soon be attending. In the season finale against Tarleton, my future C/I leader Otis Amy caught a touchdown pass. Halftime of that game featured inductions into the AC Hall of Honor. Among former athletes Willie Williams, Don Fields, and Weldon Eaton, Austin College posthumously inducted Richard Earl St. John.
Winston Churchill once wrote about his reaction to the news of Pearl Harbor. He mused that Americans across the country that December 7, 1941 night probably retired full of anxiety and tension. Churchill, however, had a different reaction. After hearing the news about the Day of Infamy, the British Prime Minister “went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.”
Indeed. For Churchill knew that Americans would soon be on the way: on the home front in the U.S., on the front lines in Europe, and in between fighting and dying in the Battle of the Atlantic. He knew that Kangaroos like Richard Earl St. John would be arriving from “the New World, with all its power and might, to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”
