In the early-morning hours of Jan. 30, 1945, Jones was asleep on the forward deck of the USS Cavalier when a torpedo struck the ship.

“The ship buckled, and the front of the ship came up and then landed back on the water,” recalled Jones, now 85. “I was thrown what I would guess was about 15 feet and landed on a line spool. I had some injuries to my chest and also broke my wrist.”

Jones, who served in the Coast Guard, also suffered a concussion that left him disoriented and suffering from massive headaches in the days and weeks after the attacks.

Ricky Byrd, the veterans’ service officer in Johnston County, said a mix-up over Jones’ whereabouts after the torpedo attack added insult to his injuries. Byrd first heard Jones’ story about five years ago, when the frustrated veteran turned to him for help in securing disability benefits he’d been unable to obtain on his own.

“I’ll never forget the day he first walked into my office,” Byrd said. “He said ‘I’ve got a problem.’ I said I didn’t know if there was much we could do but that we would certainly try.”

The issue at hand: Jones had been listed as AWOL when the Cavalier’s officers called for a formation shortly after the attack, which occurred near Manila Bay. Because of his injuries, Jones was resting in his bunk, but Byrd said an investigation showed that no one on board went looking for him for nearly 24 hours.

“When he didn’t show up on deck, they just counted him as missing,” Byrd said. “But where would he have gone?”

Even after Jones was found, Byrd said, his superiors doubted his story and threatened to have him court-martialed. In the end, Jones received an honorable discharge, but his circumstances came back to haunt him when he began seeking benefits from the federal government.

“This guy was actually wounded, but it was never recognized,” Byrd said. “So what we had to try to do was go back and prove that they were wrong about him and that he deserved the benefits he was seeking.”

Byrd said he sought the help of several North Carolina congressmen in Jones’ case. After a long ordeal, Jones, of N.C. 39, learned a few weeks ago that his years-long battle to restore his reputation had been won.

But that news also came with an unexpected surprise — a phone call from the U.S. Coast Guard. (Though the Cavalier was a Navy ship, it was manned by the Coast Guard.)

“They called me about a month ago and said I had been nominated for a Purple Heart and that they wanted to come down and interview me,” Jones said. “I didn’t know what to think, to tell you the truth. I don’t know quite how to put that feeling into perspective.”

Jones received the medal during a ceremony Thursday beside a Coast Guard cutter in Wilmington. A day earlier, Jones said he was anxious about having to give a speech about those dark days spent aboard the Cavalier, which transported troops from Pearl Harbor to the front lines in the Pacific.

“This brings back a flood of memories,” he said. “I think of how the main thing that really bothered me when I was in Saipan [in Japan] was seeing bodies floating in the water. That really got me. I also remember a young man we took aboard the ship that was wounded, and he was only 17.”

“All this stuff has happened to me, but it’s like I don’t really know what to say,” Jones added. “But I’m honored.”