Name: Joseph BERRY Jr.
Rank / Rating: STM1-Steward's Mate First Class
Service #: 641 10 24
DOB: Apr 25, 1925
From: Chicago, IL
Parents:
Went Aboard: Dec 30, 1944
Age When Ship Went Down: 20 years, 3 months, 5 days
Spouse:
Children:
Grandchildren:
Bio Submitted By: Jane Gwinn Goodall
Date Posted:

According to two sources, the U.S. World War II and Korean Conflict Veterans Interred Overseas and the U.S. Defense POW/MIA, Unaccounted-for Remains, Group B 1941-1975, Joseph Berry, Jr. entered into the Navy in Tennessee. At the onset of this project, little was known about him, except his mother’s name, Fannie Eva Mason. She was listed as his next of kin and was living in Chicago at the time of his death. Other family information has been difficult to find. Berry, Jr. may have been among the six million African Americans who were part of the Great Migration movement from the rural south to northern industrial cities that occurred in the 1930s and 1940s. We did find a 1930 Census report taken in Benton, Mississippi that shows a family of four: father, Joseph E. Berry; mother, Fannie E. Berry; sister, Theota Berry; and Joseph Berry, Jr., age 5. That would mean that Joseph Berry, Jr. was born around 1925. His draft registration card has not been located, so we have no official verification of his birthdate. (Draft cards since located.)

Joseph Berry, Jr. came aboard USS Indianapolis (CA-35) on 30 December 1944 as Steward’s Mate First Class from Navy Training and Distribution Center, Camp Elliott, San Diego, California. Other Steward’s Mates that boarded Indy on the same day included Joe Walker Hill, Jimmie Lee Hollingsworth, Henry Jordan, and Cleo Randolph. They served together seven months before Indy’s fateful sinking. Berry participated in Indy’s last two Battle Stars in the Spring of 1945 during the time Indianapolis was the flagship of Admiral Raymond Spruance’s Fifth Fleet. In the last battle, Indianapolis was among the more than 1,600 ships carrying 350,000 naval personnel to form the largest amphibious assault force of World War II at Okinawa. In the epic battle at Okinawa, Indianapolis shot down six planes. Berry was part of the surviving crew on the morning of 31 March 1945 when a kamikaze plane came out of the sun and the crew had only 25 seconds to react. The kamikaze pilot crashed his plane into the port stern of Indy, releasing the plane’s bomb just before impact. Berry survived, but nine of his shipmates were killed. However, the heroic damage control efforts of the entire crew managed to save their ship. The kamikaze attack set in motion a chain of destiny as Indy returned to Mare Island for damage repair. Joseph Berry, Jr. was among the nearly three-quarters of the crew who were called back to duty for what turned out to be the ship’s final mission. He was only 20 years old at the time of his death. Berry’s mother, Fannie Mason, wrote to Indianapolis’s commanding officer, Captain McVay, in an effort to find out about her son She had read in the newspaper that the ship had sunk and was anxious to know whether her son was safe or not. (See letter below.)