Stephen Jurika

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Stephen Jurika Jr.
Stephen Jurika as a lieutenant (jg)
Born(1910-12-09)9 December 1910
Los Angeles, California
Died15 July 1993(1993-07-15) (aged 82)
San Mateo, California
Buried
Los Altos Cemetery
AllegianceUnited States of America
Service/branchUnited States Navy Seal United States Navy
Years of service1933–1962
Rank Captain
Service number0-72378
Commands heldCarrier Air Wing Fourteen
Battles/warsWorld War II: Korean War
AwardsNavy Cross
Silver Star
Legion of Merit (2)
Commendation Medal (2)

Stephen Jurika Jr. (9 December 1910 – 15 July 1993) was a United States Navy officer and aviator during World War II, best known for his role as an intelligence officer in the Doolittle Raid. He was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions as navigator of the aircraft carrier USS Franklin after it was severely damaged and set ablaze by a lone Japanese dive bomber on 19 March 1945. After the war he was the naval air attaché in Australia, and during the Korean War, he was the naval liaison officer with the Japan Air Self-Defense Force. He retired from the Navy in 1962, he became a professor at Stanford University, Santa Clara University and the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

Early life and career[edit]

Stephen Jurika Jr. (pronounced jer-EE-kah) was born in Los Angeles, California,[1] on 9 December 1910, the son of Stefan Jurika[2] and Blanche Anna née Walker.[3][4] Stephen had a brother, Thomas Walker Jurika (guerrilla assistant of Chick Parsons), and a sister, Katrushka (wife of Chick Parsons).[1] Stephen spent much of his early years in the Philippines, where his father owned plantations, and went to school in the Philippines, China and Japan. He entered the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, graduating with the class of 1933.[5]

After service on the cruisers USS Louisville and Houston, he became a naval aviator, completing his flight training at Naval Air Station Pensacola. He was then posted to Torpedo Squadron 3 (VT-3), on the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga.[5] He married Lillian Ursula Marie Smith, the daughter of a United States Marine Corps colonel, Harry Locke Smith.[6] They had three daughters, Lillian, Jane and Anne.[1]

In June 1939, he became the naval air attaché in Tokyo, a role in which his ability to speak fluent Japanese was invaluable.[5] "As an aviator", he later recalled, "I was interested in more than just ships. I became interested in targets."[7] He returned to the United States in August 1941, taking up a posting with the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington, DC.[5]

World War II[edit]

In October 1941, Jurika joined the crew of the newly commissioned aircraft carrier USS Hornet as its flight deck and intelligence officer.[5] He briefed the participants in the April 1942 Doolittle Raid[8] on the best industrial and military targets in the city, and the best routes to get to them, and instructed them on how to identify themselves to people in China.[9] He would later be portrayed by Leon Ames in the 1944 movie about the raid, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.[10]

Jurika served on the Hornet in the Battle of Midway in June 1942,[11] and at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in October, during which the Hornet was badly damaged and had to be scuttled.[5] In December he became the Operations Officer of AirSols. He was awarded the Legion of Merit and the Commendation Medal for conducting a survey of an airfield site on Japanese-held Munda on New Georgia with a three-man survey party.[9][11]

Returning to the United States, he served as a torpedo bomber training officer at Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale and then the Naval Air Operational Training Command in Jacksonville, Florida from August 1943 until December 1944,[9] when he became the navigator on the aircraft carrier USS Franklin.[5][12] He was present on the bridge on the morning of 19 March 1945 when the Franklin was severely damaged and set ablaze by a lone Japanese dive bomber. When the fires reached the magazine, Jurika later recalled, "Whole aircraft engines with propellers attached, debris of all description, including pieces of human bodies were flung high into the air and descended on the general area like hail on a roof."[13] He remained at his post,[14] and was one of 18 crewmen who were awarded the Navy Cross for their actions that day.[13] He then served as operations officer of Carrier Division One.[11]

Post-war[edit]

With his knowledge of Asian languages and customs, Jurika became the naval air attaché in Australia in 1946.[5] He felt that the Chifley government failed to appreciate the danger posed by Communism, and was slow to move against a spy ring known to be operating in Australia.[15] He felt that the Commonwealth Security Service, charged with responsibility for counter-espionage were amateurs and "flatfeet".[16] On his recommendation, and that of the US Ambassador to Australia, Myron M. Cowen, intelligence cooperation with Australia was halted.[15]

Jurika returned to the United States to become the Executive Officer of the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Texas.[5] He went back to the Pacific as an officer on the Carrier Division One staff. During the Korean War, he was the naval liaison officer with the Japan Air Self-Defense Force, for which he was awarded the Legion of Merit. His citation read:

Utilizing his extensive knowledge of naval procedures and operations, Captain Jurika supervised the development and implementation of improved joint operating procedures betn Japan Air Defense Force and Naval Units within the Far East which markedly increased defense capabilities in the theater. Operating under these procedures, the combined activities of Air Force Units and Naval radar units and aircraft produced an exceptionally secure and coordinated air defense program. The outstanding resourcefulness and sound judgment Captain Jurika applied to the communications phase of these plans resulted in closer co-ordination and increased effectiveness of the different units. A short-tour inter-service exchange plan he devised for Air Force and Naval officers contributed greatly to effective joint operations; and through his diligent efforts and exemplary conduct, he was instrumental in bringing about an outstanding level of co-operative effort between the two services.[14]

Later life[edit]

After service on the staffs of Admirals Arthur W. Radford and Felix Stump,[11] Jurika earned an M.A. degree in geography from George Washington University in June 1957.[1][17][18] He commanded Carrier Air Wing Fourteen from 1957 to 1959, and then was Commanding Officer of the Stanford University NROTC program from 1959 to 1962.[5] While there he was both teacher and student,[19] earning his PhD in 1962, writing his doctoral thesis on "The political geography of the Philippines".[20] After retiring from the Navy in 1962, he taught political science at Stanford from 1962 to 1964, at the University of Santa Clara from 1964 to 1975, and at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, from 1975 to 1986. He was concurrently a research scholar at the Hoover Institution from 1980 until 1986.[9]

Jurika died from cancer at a hospital in Menlo Park, California, on 15 July 1993, and was interred in Los Altos, California. He was survived by his wife and three daughters, and his brother.[1][5] His papers are in the Hoover Institution.[19]

Family tree[edit]

  • Susanna Elizabeth Jurika Cecil (1909, Jolo—1961, Lovelock) + Robert Edgar Cecil (1906—1961)
  • Robert S. Cecil
  • Victoria J. Cecil
  • Stefani Deirdre Cecil Cochran (1940, Manila— )
  • Suzita Cecil Myers
  • Lilian Ursula Jurika (1938—2006)
  • Jane Ellen Jurika (1945— )
  • Ann Jurika
  • Patrick Parsons
  • Maria Parsons
  • Jose Parsons
  • William Jurika
  • Anne Jurika Moore
  • Louis Lee Jurika (Manila— )
  • Thomas Walker Jurika (1954, Davao—1993, Mill Valley)

Bibliography[edit]

  • Jurika, Stephen (1979). The Reminiscences of Captain Stephen Jurika, Jr., U.S. Navy (Retired). Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute. OCLC 6001224.
  • Olsen, Edward A.; Jurika, Stephen (1986). The Armed Forces in Contemporary Asian Societies. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. ISBN 9780813301600.
  • Radford, Arthur William; Jurika, Stephen (1980). From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam : the Memoirs of Admiral Arthur W. Radford. Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press. ISBN 978-0-8179-7211-0.
  • Smith, J. Malcolm; Jurika, Stephen (1972). The President and National Security: his Role as Commander-in-Chief. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Pub. Co. ISBN 9780840303875.

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e "Stephen Jurika Jr., 82, Officer and a Scholar". The New York Times. 24 July 1993. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  2. ^ Stefan Jurika (1880-1929), Anglicised as Stephen Jurika, was born in Malatiná, then in Austria-Hungary, now in Slovakia. He was a naturalised US citizen and settled on Mindanao where he engaged in commerce.
  3. ^ "Stephen Jurika 1910–1993". Ancestry.com. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  4. ^ Blanche was a volunteer at Emmanuel Cooperative Hospital, Tondo, Manila. Betrayed in January 1944 by a Japanese agent, Franco Vera Reyes, who had befriended them and won their trust, Blanche, with Dr. Hawthorne Darby, nurse Helen Jonaline Wilk, Methodist pastor Mary Litt Boyd Stagg, and another woman named Sybil were taken by the Kempeitai to the Cementerio del Norte where they were beheaded and buried on 28 or 30 August 1944:[1] Archived 3 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine "Blanche was dead, executed in late August, 1944, hands tied behind her, blindfolded and kneeling over a newly-dug trench somewhere in Manila's North Cemetery, killed with over two dozen other civilians accused of various acts of conspiracy by the Japanese. For Blanche and the few other American women, death was by beheading by Samurai sword. For the men, it had been a single shot to the back of the head." —Louis Jurika [2] Their common grave was found in 1945 by Thomas Walker Jurika who threatened and forced the double-agent Richard Sakakida to reluctantly reveal the grave's location.[3]
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Brief Biography of Stephen Jurika (1910–1993)" (PDF). Christian Churches Network of London. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  6. ^ Goodspeed, Hill (February 2014). "Letters from the Precipice of War". Naval History. 28 (1): 54–58. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  7. ^ Goodspeed, Hill (April 2015). "The Navy Targets Tokyo". Naval History. 29 (9). U.S. Naval Institute. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  8. ^ "The Unsolved Mysteries of the Doolittle Raid". warfarehistorynetwork.com. Archived from the original on 3 July 2017.
  9. ^ a b c d "The Doolittle Raid Bio Stephen Jurika". Aircraft Carrier USS Hornet Museum. Archived from the original on 18 December 2015. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  10. ^ Ross, Ed (16 April 2012). "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo". Archived from the original on 23 June 2012. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  11. ^ a b c d "Jurika, Stephen, Jr. (1910–1993)". U.S. Naval Institute. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  12. ^ "US Attache Was On Death Ship". The Daily News. Vol. LXV, no. 22, 538. Western Australia: National Library of Australia. 5 July 1947. p. 11 (LATE SPORTS). Retrieved 23 March 2016.
  13. ^ a b Shea, Michael R. (31 July 2009). "Red Sky at Morning: Horror and Heroism Aboard the USS Franklin". History.Net. Retrieved 22 March 2015.
  14. ^ a b "Valor awards for Stephen Jurika , Jr". Military Times. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  15. ^ a b Horner, David (2014). The Spy Catchers. Volume One: 1949–1963. The Official History of ASIO. Crows Nest, New South Wales: Allen & Unwin. pp. 65, 79–82 95–99, 136. ISBN 9781743319666. OCLC 897493657.
  16. ^ Maher, Lawrence W. (September 1992). "The Use and Abuse of Sedition" (PDF). Sydney Law Review. 14 (287). Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  17. ^ Jurika, Stephen (1957). A geography of Southern Asia (Thesis). Columbian College, George Washington University. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
  18. ^ "Degree conferred". Coronado Journal. Vol. 44, no. 25. 20 June 1957. p. 3. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
  19. ^ a b "Overview of the Stephen Jurika papers". Online Archive of California. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  20. ^ Jurika, Stephen (1962). The political geography of the Philippines (Thesis). Stanford University. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  21. ^ ashes interred in Manila in 1969
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