Reuben James

This is not the USS Reuben James

I came across this picture on the Defense Imagery web site. I thought it was a nice picture of a small ship at sea. Blue skies, fluffy white clouds, deep blue ocean. Very nice. The caption tells me that the small ship is the Darulehsan from the Brunei Navy and that this picture was taken from the USS Reuben James. That's her fantail in the bottom of the picture. Reuben James, now that name rings a bell. Wasn't there a song about Reuben James? Well, yes there was, two songs actually. Two completely different songs about two completely different men. One was about an old Southern sharecropper that was a big hit for Kenny Rogers. The other was about a US Navy destroyer and was a hit for the Kingston Trio. On Deaf Ears tells us:

The USS Reuben James was the first American ship sunk in World War II, on October 31, 1941. Although the United States was officially neutral at the time, President Roosevelt had ordered the Navy to provide support to the United Kingdom in her fight against Nazi Germany. The Reuben James was escorting military material when she was torpedoed by a German submarine.
Woody Guthrie, at the time singing with Pete Seeger in the Almanac Singers, wrote "The Sinking of the Reuben James" (also known as simply "Reuben James") immediately thereafter. While the song sounds like a rousing patriotic anthem, it's worth noting that both Seeger and Guthrie were pro-Soviet Communists and were opposed to U.S. involvement in World War II, until Hitler's betrayal of Stalin caused them to shift their views 180 degrees and support U.S. intervention. Had the sinking happened prior to the dissolution of the Hitler-Stalin pact, it is quite likely that no song at all would have been written, or, if one had, the sentiments expressed would have been quite different.

That's a little weird, but okay. So who was this Reuben James, the one the ship was named for? That goes back to the shores of Tripoli. Reuben James (c. 1776 – 3 December 1838) was a boatswain's mate of the United States Navy, famous for his heroism in the First Barbary War.

To carry this a little further, James Island, named for Reuben, is in the San Juans up in Washington State. Well, I'll be. I've been to the San Juans but I've never heard of no James Island. Course, there's a zillion little rocks up there, I doubt I know the names of more than two or three. This island was christened by one Charles Wilkes, another US Navy man famous for his South Seas Expedition where he "discovered" Antarctica, and the Trent Affair in the British Colony of Bermuda during the Civil War. Wikipedia leaves us with this little clue:

Some historians speculate that Wilkes' obsessive behavior and harsh code of shipboard discipline shaped Herman Melville's characterization of Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick.

Have I connected enough dots for one day?

Update November 2015. Added some links.