James Patrick Sinnott Devereux (February 20, 1903 – August 5, 1988) was a United States Marine Corps general, Navy Cross recipient, and Republican congressman.

Devereux also attended the Army and Navy Preparatory School in Washington, D.C., then the Tome School overlooking the Susquehanna River at Port Deposit, Maryland, LaVilla in Lausanne, Switzerland (when his parents lived in Vienna, Austria), and later Loyola College of Baltimore, a Jesuit Roman Catholic institution in Maryland.

In 1926, he was detailed to the mail guard detachment in New York City and later was transferred to the force of Marines then serving in Nicaragua as a company officer.

[1] In 1933, following a year's tour of duty at Quantico, he was assigned to the Coast Artillery School at Fort Monroe, Virginia.

[4] Devereux and the men of the 1st Defense Battalion arrived at Wake Island on October 15, 1941 aboard the USS Regulus (AF-57).

However, later, after a second more intensive larger invasion force attacked, after days of bitter fighting, the 449 Marines surrendered to the Japanese on December 23, 1941.

Devereux was advanced to the rank of brigadier general upon retirement in accordance with law, having been specially commended for the performance of duty in actual combat.

For his leadership in defending the tiny American outpost for 15 days against overwhelming odds, Devereux was awarded the Navy Cross.

His citation reads: The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Major James Patrick Sinnott Devereux, United States Marine Corps, for distinguished and heroic conduct in the line of his profession, as Commanding Officer of the First Marine Defense Battalion, Naval Air Station, Wake Island.

[11] In 1950, Devereux was elected as a Republican to the U.S. Congress for Maryland's 2nd Congressional District by defeating incumbent Democratic Rep. William P. Bolton.

He later served as director of public safety for Baltimore County, Maryland, from December 1962 to 1966, supervising the police and fire departments.

Devereux is the grandson of Joseph F. Sinnott, a prominent Irish businessman in Philadelphia who made a fortune as a co-owner of Gibson's Rye Whisky.

Brigadier General Devereux died at age 85 in Stella Maris Hospice in the county seat of Towson, Maryland, just north of Baltimore on August 5, 1988, from pneumonia.