Capt. John Dunn
Master Mariner

©

John Paul Dunn was born in Macon, Georgia, on September 22, 1908, to Alice Wheeler, a schoolteacher from Port Jefferson, Long Island. Alice had married John Dunn, a surveyor for the Southern Railroad, and had gone to live in the Dunn-Bushnell household in Macon. In those days, children were born at home and Captain John Dunn started his life upstairs in the west room of the Macon place. He loved growing up in the extended southern family. Years later, while at sea, he would write reminiscences about early childhood. By the time he was ready for school, the small family (he was an only child) had moved to Davenport, Florida. He was educated by the public schools of Polk County, Florida. Upon graduation he went to work for his Uncle Fred, a road surveyor.

On April 13, 1929, at the age of 20, he started his life at sea as a deck boy on the S.S. POLYBIUS. John Dunn worked his way up from this position to the Master of the S.S. JOHN C. CALHOUN.

The S.S. JOHN C. CALHOUN was one of the first Liberty Ships built and it had no top wheelhouse. The merchant crew of 36 men were mainly young men from maritime training schools. The CALHOUN also had about 22 sailors from the Navy Armed Guard.

Her dimensions:
Length: 441 feet
Beam: 57 feet
Draft: 27 feet 8 inches(summer draft)
Displacement Tonnage: 14,225

This was Captain Dunn’s first World War II Liberty Ship. His trip on the CALHOUN was completely around the world. Although not a Liberty Ship, the S.S. MARYMAR, of which he was Captain, was part of the D-Day convoy, Omaha Beach-Red Sector. To quote from his journal, "As we approached the beachhead, I saw more ships than I had ever seen at once."

By the end of World War II, he had sailed as master of two more Liberty Ships, the CHARLES M. SCHWAB and the JAMES A. BUTTS. Throughout the war, as well as afterwards, he was a Lt. Commander in the Naval Reserve.

At the time of his death in 1957, he was the Captain of the S.S. OREMAR, owned by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation.

On December 15, 1956, while he was on the bridge of his ship, he suffered a coronary thrombosis. He was taken to a hospital in La Serena, Chile. He later died in Baltimore on January 29, 1957. His ashes were buried at sea off Cape Hatteras. His first cousin, Captain Charles Dunn, officiated at the ceremony. He was survived by his wife Querida Duval Dunn, a lawyer from New York, and his two daughters Jacqueline and Laurel Suzanna Dunn.

Submitted by Jacky Dunn (daughter)