The John Burke was launched from Kaiser Shipbuilding Company's Oregon Shipbuilding yard in Portland, Oregon, her keel laid on November 20, 1942. She was named for John Burke, the 10th Governor of North Dakota, who had served from 1907 to 1913. Like her 2,709 sister ships, she was an EC2-S-C1 type: 441 feet long, powered by two oil-fired boilers and a single 2,500-horsepower triple-expansion steam engine that turned a single propeller at 76 rpm, achieving a top speed of about 11 knots. Liberty ships were not designed to be elegant or fast. They were designed to be numerous -- an expedient solution to the catastrophic merchant shipping losses inflicted by German U-boats. Large hatches above five cargo holds allowed steam winches to load and unload rapidly. The bridge, radio room, and captain's quarters sat atop a three-deck structure amidships. Gun tubs at the bow, stern, and above the bridge held a mix of weaponry that could include 5-inch, 4-inch, 3-inch, 40mm, 20mm, and .50-caliber guns.

In late December 1944, the John Burke joined the 100-ship convoy designated "Uncle Plus 13," bound for Leyte in the Philippines to deliver supplies for the ongoing campaign to liberate the islands. The convoy arrived at Leyte on the night of December 27. Japanese forces learned of its presence shortly before daybreak on December 28, and a flight of kamikaze fighter-bombers was dispatched from Cebu Island. The crews aboard the convoy's ships went to general quarters after the dawn weather report confirmed that air cover would not launch until the poor weather cleared. They waited, knowing the Japanese would come before their own planes could protect them.

At about 08:15, the first kamikaze appeared on radar, and the convoy began evasive maneuvers. Through breaks in the cloud cover, Japanese pilots spotted the American ships steaming south of Cebu and Bohol. Three A6M Zero fighters from the 201st Air Group, led by Lieutenant Masami Hoshino, had taken off from Cebu at 09:50, each carrying a 250-kilogram bomb. One pilot dove through the anti-aircraft fire, his aircraft already damaged, and crashed between the John Burke's number two and number three cargo holds. What happened next was not a fire or a slow sinking. The ammunition in the holds detonated in a catastrophic explosion that obliterated the ship almost instantaneously. The blast damaged several nearby vessels. All merchant crew and armed guards aboard -- the exact number uncertain -- died without any opportunity to abandon ship.

The kamikaze attack that destroyed the John Burke that morning was only the beginning. Over the next two days, Japanese aircraft continued to attack the convoy, sinking more ships and killing hundreds. The surviving vessels reached their destination at 06:48 on December 30, delivering materials for the Mindoro invasion. Today, the fragmented remains of the SS John Burke lie on the seabed approximately 1,500 feet below the surface, in the strait between Negros, Siquijor, and Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte. She was one of three Liberty ships and one of forty-seven ships sunk by kamikaze attack during World War II. Two of her sister ships -- the SS John W. Brown and the SS Jeremiah O'Brien -- survived the war and more than seventy years beyond it, and now serve as museum ships open to the public. The John Burke, by contrast, left nothing on the surface. Only the record of her loss, and the men who went down with her, remain.