Charles Joseph McCarthy

Charles received his name in tribute to his grandfather when he was born on December 5, 1906 in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the firstborn son of Timothy McCarthy and Helen Kenny, both natives of Ireland, who had just married in Boston in September of 1905.

The family added another son, Daniel at the end of 1907 but he died six months later of spinal meningitis. Timothy was born in early 1909 but died before year’s end of pneumonia.

Unfortunately, Charles wasn’t old enough to understand much about death until his father succumbed to tuberculosis in 1911. Then came the crushing blow at seven years old when his mother died in 1914. Presumably he grew up with relatives, but no records to confirm that have been found.

One clue is revealed, however, when he registered for the draft in 1940. He was living 100 miles west of Boston in Greenfield, Massachusetts and listed his cousin, Charles Sullivan, as his contact person. He also listed his employer, the Greenfield Tap & Die Company.

Less than two weeks after the Navy base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was bombed by Japan, Charles enlisted into the Navy on December 20, 1941. A month later he joined the USS San Diego (CL53) from the Naval Training Station in Newport, Rhode Island. 

His rating was Watertender, 3rd Class (WT3c), which means he tended to the fires and boilers in the ship’s engine room. The insignia’s propeller icon indicates the crew member was part of the Engine Force.

The next records are from June 24, 1944, showing he was received onboard the USS Matanikau (CVE101) on the day it was commissioned. This ship was a training and transport carrier, where over 1300 aviators earned their qualifications to fly.

About a year later Charles was admitted to the Philadelphia Naval Hospital because of some heart problems. That’s where he died on November 27 due to a bilateral lung infarction, the death of lung tissue due to a blocked coronary artery. The Navy made arrangements for his burial and grave marker here in the Naval Plot.