Eugene Earle Amick

Who was Eugene Earle Amick?

Eugene Earle Amick, Jr. was born at Boonville, Missouri, the first son of Eugene Earle Amick and Gertrude Apperson Jones Amick. He studied at the University of Kansas City and Rockhurst College before entering William Jewell College in 1937. After graduating from the latter in 1941, Amick enlisted in the Naval Reserve on September 19, 1941. Following preliminary training, he was appointed a midshipman on February 13, 1942 and entered the United States Naval Reserve Midshipman's School at Northwestern University. Upon his successful completion of the officers' candidate course there, he was commissioned ensign on May 14, 1942 and assigned to USS Astoria. He married Mary Jane Redpath on May 17, 1942, in Kansas City, Missouri.

Amick shipped out on the USS Astoria a week later as she prepared to participate in the first Allied thrust in the Pacific, the invasion of the Solomon Islands at Guadalcanal. He was killed on the second night after the original landings as Allied warships attempted to protect American beachheads in the Battle of Savo Island in the small hours of August 9. A destroyer escort, the USS Amick, was named in his honor and launched on May 27, 1943. The unconditional surrender of Paleliu Islands was signed in the wardroom of the Amick on Sept 1, 1945. A plaque in honor of the USS Amick was dedicated at the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas, in May 2010 by surviving shipmates.