2025 SCHOLARSHIP
$2500 Award Recipient
James Walker Cresswell
Walker Cresswell was awarded a $2500 Lt. John J. Griffin, Jr./USS Emmons Memorial Scholarship to use toward his educational expenses for the 2025-26 academic year.
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Walker lives in Olive Branch, Mississippi, and is attending the University of Mississippi this fall as a freshman. He entered as a pre-med student majoring in English and Biology with his sights set on a career as an ophthalmologist. William and Thomas McCONNELL, Walker’s great-great uncles, were among the 60 shipmates who made the ultimate sacrifice aboard the Emmons at Okinawa.
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READ THE 2025 ESSAY:
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The 2025 Essay Prompt:
April 1, 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Okinawa, which saw the death and destruction of over a quarter of a million people including 110,000 Japanese combatants, 12,000 Americans combat personnel and between 100,000 – 150,000 Okinawan civilians. This was the bloodiest battle Americans fought throughout the course of WWII. The United States Navy sustained 368 ships damaged, 36 ships sunk 4,907 sailors killed and 4,824 wounded. Among those American casualties were 60 sailors killed in action aboard USS Emmons (DD-457/DMS-22) on April 6,1945 when it was struck by five Japanese kamikaze aircraft while on radar picket patrol in support of the invasion.
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The Japanese battle plan for Okinawa called for the maximum attrition of enemy forces so as to break the morale of American forces and the resolve of America’s citizenry to see the war to its just end. Lieutenant General Ushijima Mitsuru called upon his men to fight to the death and kill as many Americans as possible in accordance to the Bushido Code of Conduct. Despite the carnage inflicted upon the Emmons by the kamikaze attack, the crew rallying under the leadership of Lieutenant John Griffin tended to their wounded and conducted an orderly evacuation from the stricken warship.
#1. How do you think these men were able to maintain order and discipline within their ranks in the face of such a dire crisis?
In the years that have transpired since the Battle of Okinawa, the resolve of the American public has been tested in numerous conflicts including Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. In some of these conflicts, America rose to meet the challenge and stayed the course leading to victory whereas in other instances the American public grew weary of conflict and withdrew in defeat.
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#2. In today’s culture, do you believe America’s citizenry still possesses the same heartfelt sense of duty, patriotism and resolve displayed by “America’s Greatest Generation” aboard the Emmons during the Battle of Okinawa and throughot the course of WWII? Explain why or why not.
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#3. Finally, what can you personally do in an effort to ensure that American resolve, as was displayed during WWII and aboard the USS Emmons, will never be extinguished and will endure with the passage of time.
me and allowed to fade away?
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