George Raymond Eisele

George Raymond "Spud" Eisele (May 15, 1923 - November 12, 1942) was a United States Naval Reserve sailor who was killed in action on November 12, 1942 during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. Eisele was manning a gunnery station aboard the USS San Francisco (CA-38) when a Japanese torpedo plane crashed into his location. Eisele was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for "courageously refusing to abandon his gun in the face of an on-rushing Japanese torpedo plane."

George Eisele was born in Gillette, Wyoming on May 15, 1923. His family moved to Sheridan, Wyoming in 1936, but George stayed behind to work on the ranches of Worth Lynde and Ray Gilstrap (his uncle on his mother's side). At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Spud was working at the Bear Claw Ranch and he soon left to enlist in the Naval Reserve on February 4, 1942.

Eisele caught a bus to Salt Lake City from Sheridan, Wyoming. From there he took a train to San Diego for boot camp. He had not finished his training when the Navy asked for volunteers to serve on the USS San Francisco. Eisele volunteered.

During the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal on November 12, 1942, Eisele was manning a 21 mm machine gun near the aft conning station when a Japanese torpedo plane crashed into the control aft of the ship. Eisele remained at his station firing on the plane the entire time. Eisele and 14 other men were killed. George Raymond Eisele was awarded a Purple Heart and the Navy Cross.

Nearly a year after his death, the Navy commissioned a new destroyer escort which was named the USS Eisele (DE-34) in George's honor. Mattie Eisele, George's mother, christened the ship on June 29, 1943 at the Mare Island Navy Yard.

A large collection of photographs, documents, and objects relating to George Raymond Eisele and the USS Eisele are held at the Campbell County Rockpile Museum in Gillette, Wyoming.