US Navy 2nd Class Edgar Verl Pickern was born in Century, Florida on April 3, 1914, the son of Horace M. Pickern (1889-1917) and Virgie Lee Castillow (1896-1975). His parents married in 1913 and his father was a farm laborer who died prematurely at the age of 27-years old. His mother would remarry in 1919 to another farmer by the name of Ely Hughell Rigby (1882-1965) in Canoe, Alabama. The family lived in the community known as Bratt, Florida, just south of Atmore, Alabama. Because of this proximity, he is listed at times as being from Alabama.
In the meantime, Edgar enlisted in the Navy and was trained as a gunner and stationed aboard a merchant marine vessel to protect them against German submarines. His particular assignment was the 7,550-ton steam merchant SS Warrior that belonged to the Waterman Steamship Company out of Mobile, Alabama. On July 1, 1942, the "Warrior" was sailing alone on the "Philadelphia-Trinidad-Table Bay-Bandar Shapur" run with a cargo of general war supplies and fuel. As she approached a position 125 miles east of Trinidad, she came within range of the German submarine U-126. This was the sub's 4th patrol, and she was captained by Ernest Bauer, a recipient of the Iron Cross. He stalked his prey until he had her in his periscope's crosshairs before firing two torpedoes into her port side.
The ship sank within five minutes even as Edgar and his three fellow Navy gunners got off four rounds from their 3-inch gun before they went down with the ship. Of the ship's complement of 42 crewmen and 14 Navy gunners, a total of 49 survived to be picked up by the destroyer USS Herbert (DD-160) four hours later. In all, three engine room sailors and four Navy gunners perished. Edgar's remains were never recovered while his brother Alvin E. Pickern (1916-2005) would go on to serve with the Navy in WWII and Korea.
But in submarine warfare the hunter can just as quickly become the hunted. And it so happened that on July 3, 1943, the U-126 under a different captain was sunk by the Royal Air Force off Cape Ortegal, Spain and her crew of 55 men went to a watery grave.
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