On June 5, 1944, while Americans were girding themselves for news of what would soon be called D-Day, the little town of Jonesboro, Arkansas, got a headline of its own that must’ve felt like resurrection. There, walking through the front door like a man who’d merely gone to the corner store, came Adolph “Renny” Creighton; presumed dead, but very much alive.
Two years earlier, Renny had been serving aboard the USS Sculpin (SS-191), a battle-hardened submarine with eight war patrols and dozens of enemy ships sent to the deep. But in November 1943, during her ninth patrol near the Caroline Islands, the Sculpin went silent. After a desperate engagement involving depth charges and a surface battle against a Japanese destroyer, she was lost along with the brave Captain John Cromwell, who famously chose to go down with the boat rather than risk enemy capture and compromise Allied operations. Some crewmen survived the ordeal only to suffer as POWs—some dying en route to Japan when their transport was sunk by a sister submarine, the USS Sailfish. A twist of fate, darkly poetic.
So when word reached Jonesboro that Renny Creighton had been aboard the Sculpin, the family grieved. The Navy had listed him as missing. The presumption, naturally, was that he was gone. Another name in the long tolling of the losses endured by Silent Service.
But here he was, on the front porch.
It turned out that sometime before the Sculpin’s final voyage, Renny had been transferred. Where? That, he wouldn’t say. What boat? Also off-limits (see below). Did he let his folks know about the change? Of course not, he was in the Navy, and the Navy played its cards as close as a nun at a poker table. Wartime censorship and operational security weren’t just formalities, they were gospel. It’s funny in hindsight, this unintentional ghosting of his own family, but it reminds us how seriously the Navy took the business of secrecy. And how thoroughly.
Renny’s silence about his new assignment spoke volumes. Whatever submarine to which he had transferred (see below) had not only survived but had, according to his few grinning admissions, been “quite successful.” That meant tonnage. That meant kills. That meant tight turns, cold depths, and enemy steel peeled open under torpedoes. And yet, he couldn’t, and wouldn’t, say anything more. That is the classic submariner’s creed: silent in service, humble in victory.
The loss of the Sculpin remains one of the more harrowing tales of the Pacific War. Her final moments were full of chaos and courage, and her story etched in the grim ledger of sacrifice. Renny’s narrow escape from that fate wasn’t just good fortune. It was a rare wartime miracle, and in an era where telegrams carried heartbreak, his arrival was the emotional equivalent of raising the dead.
For the Creighton family and friends, there was no sweeter news than the sudden, surreal sight of Renny standing hale and whole before them. One can imagine the sheer disbelief, the kind of joy so overwhelming it borders on madness. Tears, laughter, scolding, and embraces that tried to make up for the months and years of silence.
In a world that had been told he was gone, Renny Creighton came home. And in doing so, he reminded everyone that not every story ends at sea. Some men slip the depths, shake off the shroud, and return to the front porch with little more than a grin and a duffel bag full of secrets.
Welcome home, sailor. Welcome home.
GM3(SS) Renny Creighton was a member of USSVI-WWII, serving on four boats (and two tenders) during WWII. His story and his amazingly effervescent personality and presence (and his deep Arkansas drawl and humor) is featured in the book “Take Her Deep,” by Admiral I.J. Galantin. Including the humorous story of his unexpected arrival at home after his transfer to the USS Halibut SS-232, the “famous ship” which he refused to name.
He left the Navy in 1946 and settled in New Hampshire, where he departed on Eternal Patrol on April 26, 2000. He was buried in High Street Cemetery, Hampton, NH.
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