By Michael Rocchetti
In January 1943, Herve St Peter Sr. (a Navy Seabee) was on a mission to a South Pacific base where his son’s ship, the USS American Legion, was at port. Hoping to visit with his son, the father was heartbroken to hear the news: Herve St Peter Jr. (a US Navy Fireman 1st Class) was missing in action. No trace of him was ever found, and to this day, over 80 years later, the details surrounding his fate are still shrouded in mystery.
Herve St Peter Sr. (or St Pierre) was born May 15, 1897, in Southbridge, the eldest son of French Canadian immigrants Joseph and Leona St Pierre. He had a brother and two sisters. He was a veteran of both WWI and WWII. During WWI he was a U.S. Army soldier assigned to Company D, 116th Engineers, 1st Depot Division of the American Expeditionary Force. During the fighting in France, he was wounded in action (gassed). After the war he returned to Southbridge. He was married twice, and had four children. He reenlisted in the military in Aug 1942 with the U.S. Navy, serving as a Seabee – a Chief Carpenter’s Mate with the 35th Naval Construction Battalion. He contracted malaria while serving in the South Pacific, and was mustered out in May of 1943 due to this illness.  In the 1950 census he was living in Putnam, working as a grocer. He died Aug 12, 1972, and is buried along with his wife Anna, at St Mary’s Cemetery in Putnam.
Herve L St Peter Jr (1921-1945) was born in 1921 to Herve St Peter Sr. (1897-1972) and Anna D Sullivan (1907-1990). He was raised in Putnam. He joined the Navy in 1940 and served as a Fireman 1st Class aboard the transport ship USS American Legion (AP-35). The ship proceeded to the Japanese-held South Pacific island of Guadalcanal, and on Aug 7th 1942, landed the first troops to go ashore during that battle.  In January 1943, his father Herve St Peter Sr. (a Navy Seabee) was on a mission to a South Pacific base where the USS American Legion was at port. The crewman there informed the father that his son was missing in action. The family however, wasn’t officially notified of their son’s MIA status until March 1943. The Navy wrote his parents saying: “During the Guadalcanal Campaign, on August 19th 1942, while on temporary duty ashore in the Solomon Islands of the South Pacific, he was assigned to an anti-submarine patrol. He never returned from this mission. The vessels of the antisubmarine patrol were either captured or sunk by Japanese surface vessels.” Then on New Year’s Eve 1945, the family received another letter from the Navy which stated in part: “My dear Mrs. St. Peter, Your son, Herve Leo St. Peter, Jr., Fireman first class, United States Naval Reserve, has been carried on the Official records of the Navy Department in the status of missing in action as of August 19th, 1942. In view of the additional length of time that has elapsed since your son was reported missing in action, because no official nor unconfirmed reports of his survival have been received, and in view of the fact that his name has not appeared on any lists or reports of personnel liberated from Japanese prisoner of war camps, I am reluctantly forced to the conclusion that he is deceased. I know what little solace the formal and written word can be to help meet the burden of your loss, but in spite of that knowledge, I cannot refrain from saying very simply, that I am sorry. It is hoped that you may find comfort in the thought that your son gave his life for his country, upholding the highest traditions of the Navy. Sincerely yours, JAMES FORRESTAL.”
Besides his parents the young man, who was very popular in the Putnam community, left behind two sisters. Mrs. William Lee of San Francisco and Mrs. Donald Hayes of Putnam, and a step-brother, William A. Sullivan in the Navy submarine service department.
It is interesting to consider the well-documented survival story of Boatswains Mate Robert Canavan, because this may help understand the fate of Herve St Peter Jr. Canavan was a coxswain of an LCP – a landing craft used to ferry men and materials from ship to shore at Lunga Point, Guadalcanal. Canavan was out on the same mission, the same night in which Herve St Peter Jr went MIA. Canavan’s LCP, with a crew of six men, were on an anti-submarine patrol, loaded with depth charges. In the dark, early morning hours of August 19th 1942, they were intercepted by a Japanese destroyer, the IJNS Hagikaze, and all, save Canavan, were machine gunned by the Japanese. Canavan swam 12 miles over a 20-hour period, through the shark-infested waters of the “Iron Bottom” Sound and miraculously made his way to the U.S. Marine outpost on nearby Tulagi Island. It was an incredible survival story. Sadly, Herve St Peter Jr. wasn’t quite as lucky as Robert Canavan.
Hometown Heroes is a series published in the Putnam Town Crier & Northeast Ledger with this mission: We owe it to our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines to make sure that they are never forgotten, and that the memory of their service and sacrifice will forever live on in the hearts and minds of the grateful people of Putnam.

..