A family’s decadeslong mission to honor a World War II naval commander and those lost aboard his ship culminated Father’s Day weekend at a shipwreck site about 30 miles off the coast of Cape May. Doug Black and other relatives traveled aboard the research vessel Explorer to the wreck of the U SS Jacob Jones, a Navy destroyer that was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine in 1942. Among the 138 people who died was the ship’s commanding officer, Hugh David Black. “It’s taken us 30 years to accomplish this for my dad,” Doug Black said. The journey fulfilled a lifelong dream of Doug Black’s father, John Dennis Black, who died in 2022 before he could make the trip. He was a young child when the Jacob Jones sank and lost the father he never had the chance to know. “Accomplishing my dad’s dream of his lifetime to get to his father’s ship,” Doug Black said. Neither John Dennis Black nor his younger brother, David, knew their father. After two previous attempts to reach the wreck site, family members traveling from Texas and Washington state finally made the trip. “It was just really surreal to be here,” said Paisley Black, a great-granddaughter of the USS Jacob Jones commander. While aboard the Explorer, family members placed notes, ashes and keepsakes into a stainless steel tube. With the vessel anchored above the wreck, owner Rusty Cassway and other divers carried the canister 120 feet down to the ocean floor. “We buried it inside the shipwreck for it never to be found again but to be with their father and their grandfather,” Cassway said. The family also scattered ashes above the surface and directly over the ship’s final resting place. “For me there was really nothing to say,” said Hugh Black, a grandson of the commander. “It was just absorbing it all, taking it all in because who knows when we’ll ever be back.” Cassway said helping the family reach the site was about more than operating a vessel. “This wasn’t a business transaction or a boat charter,” he said. “This was the right thing to do and that’s why we did it.” Back in Cape May, plans are underway to build a permanent memorial to the USS Jacob Jones along Beach Avenue. Organizers hope the monument will be completed within the next year and a half to two years. “Can’t wait to see it. Can’t wait to see it,” Hugh Black said. The memorial will honor not only the Jacob Jones crew, but also all U.S. service members lost in the Battle of the Atlantic. “It’s important for them to be included as well because we don’t feel that they’ve been recognized nearly enough,” said Myles Martel, chair of the USS Jacob Jones Memorial Project. For the descendants of the ship’s commander, the voyage provided a long-sought sense of peace, connection and closure. This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC Philadelphia. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC Philadelphia journalist edited the article for publication. ...read more read less