Roy Wilson Lumpkin


ROY WILSON LUMPKIN (1907-1942), was the oldest son of Webb Lumpkin (1871-1925) and Beulah Mae Elledge (1881-1944).

He joined the Navy in 1926, at the age of 19, and made this his career. He married Margaret Schwalbenberg in 1938. They had no children.

Roy was killed during World War II, on 22 Aug 1942, when his ship (the USS Ingraham) collided with an oil tanker in a dense fog, and was sunk.

A web page at http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/1817.html gives an account of the vessel's end:

"The USS Ingraham sank after a violent collision with the Navy oil tanker USS Chemung in pea-soup fog off the coast of Nova Scotia. The Ingraham was part of Task Force 37 escorting Convoy AT-20 to the United Kingdom. An internal explosion caused the ship to blaze from stem to stern. It was all over in a flash, the burning wreck vanishing beneath the waves taking the lives of 218 of her crew. There were only 11 survivors, one officer and 10 ratings, all rescued by the Chemung's boat crews."

Another very detailed account can be found at http://www.daileyint.com/seawar/seawar4.htm which is a web-based book written in 1997 by Franklyn E. Dailey, Jr., an officer who was aboard one of the other ships in the convoy, the USS Edison. (Use the edit-search feature in your browser to find "Ingraham" on that page, and there is even more information in the appendices).

The convoy AT-20 departed from Halifax, Nova Scotia on August 21, 1942 (revised in Appendix E to say August 22, 1942 sometime between 4-8 a.m.) heading for the United Kingdom.

Ensign Dailey witnessed the explosion of the USS Ingraham, the flash of which "cut through the fog." "The junior watch officer on Edison's bridge reported the flash in Edison's log at 22:35 (hours) by Edison's chronometer." Ensign Dailey says that the collision cut the Ingraham nearly in half, and it rolled over nearly on its side before the magazine was detonated. Only one officer survived, plus 10 crewmen. Dailey estimated the death toll at about 250.

Roy's official death date is 23 Aug 1943, because he was considered to be "missing" for a year and a day following the disaster, according to military policy at the time.

Information Compiled
by Karen Bray Keeley

INTERNET Adaptation
by Sandra Shuler Bray