Lucky Bag Yearbook

From the 1924 Lucky Bag:

CHARLES CLARKE McDONALD

Fats

Assistant Manager Baseball (2); Manager Baseball (1); Class Water Polo (4, 3, 2); Reception Committee (3); Manager Class Football (2); Gymkhana Committee.

“CHAP. I. “Say. did you ever eat a wild duck? You did! I thought Nebraska was the only place they shot ducks. Why, I’ve killed so many———”

Chap. II. “Do you call this snow? (Registering huge disgust). Why, it snowed so hard in Nebraska in 1914 that we had to get out of the house by the upstairs window———” ad infinitum

Chap III. Ever since Mac knocked off switching freight cars and put on his first pair of shoes to enter the Navy, he has been disappointed to find that all vacancies in the Horse Marines have been filled. After having lived through a Plebe year of Dago and Second Classmen, “Fats” has had the world by the ears.

“Been smoking cigarettes ever since I was five years old and just look at my chest expansion!” But, nevertheless, he trains faithfully, loses two pounds every day and gains three back at supper.

Post Mortem. “No use boning, fellows. Once I made a 4.0 recitation in Ordnance and got hung on the tree with a 1.5. There ain’t no justice.”

Loss

Charles was lost on October 2, 1945 when the seaplane he was aboard crashed on the island of Honshu, Japan. The aircraft belonged to Patrol Bombing Squadron (VPB) 205; he had been commanding officer of USS Suwannee (CVE 27) since sometime after July 1945.

There is more on the flight and search operations¹. The wreckage was not discovered until November 1948.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Charles was born in Illinois and was mostly known by his middle name Clarke. He graduated from Long Pine High School in 1918. After completing one year at Wentworth Military Academy, he entered Illinois State University. He was nominated to the Naval Academy by Congressman M. P. Kinkaid. After graduation, Charles presented the Lucky Bag to the Long Pine Board of Education for the high school.

In January 1926, Charles’ parents visited him on the destroyer Mullany at San Diego. His father spent a full day on board ship during target practice and had a “thrilling ride on a Navy airplane.”

Charles married Loretta Christine Miller on May 20, 1927, in Pensacola.

In May 1933 Charles and his crew flew an engineer off the United Fruit Company’s steamer, the S. S. Carrillo, to Mercy hospital for an emergency appendicitis operation. The transfer from the ship was made 200 miles off shore in rough seas and took more than an hour to complete.

The Mayor of New Orleans called for a resolution congratulating the crew of Patrol Sea Plane No. 8683 in savings John Grigis’ life. The resolution read, in part, “Be it moved, that we, the commission council of the city of New Orleans, officially inscribe in the records of this community the gratitude and appreciation which we hereby express on behalf of all of the people of New Orleans to the United States navy and particularly to Lieutenants W. E. Kellum, C. C. McDonald, C. G. Alexander, J. E. Barnes, E. C. Brickman, E. P. Webb, H. M. Gordon and H. Van Amringe for the service which they so splendidly rendered one of our citizens, and that copies of this motion, each bearing the seal of this city, be transmitted to the officers and men of the seaplane in testimony of the esteem in which their gallant conduct will always be held here.” The Times Picayune newspaper of New Orleans printed a photo of the crew.

In 1940 Charles lived in Charleston, South Carolina, with his wife and daughter Anne, age 8, who was born in Maryland. In 1935 the family lived in Norfolk.

His mother was notified that the wreckage of the seaplane in which Charles died was discovered in an isolated area about five miles northeast of Wada, Nagano Prefecture, Honshu.

Charles’ remains were buried along with the others killed on the flight in a group burial in Arlington National Cemetery on May 17, 1949. His mother, wife, and daughter were present at the funeral.

In 1920 in Pine, Nebraska, his father Lewis was depot agent at the steam railroad, mother Jessie. In 1910, the family lived in Deadwood, South Dakota, where his father was a railroad cashier.

He was designated Naval Aviator #3362 in 1927.

His wife was listed as next of kin. Charles is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Photographs

From the Wentworth Military Academy's 1919 yearbook

Legion of Merit

From Hall of Valor:

(Citation Needed) - SYNOPSIS: Captain Charles C. McDonald, United States Navy, was awarded the Legion of Merit for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services to the Government of the United States as Naval Member of the staff of the Commanding General, Commander of the 6th Air Force Patrol Command, 21 December 1942 to 3 July 1944.

General Orders: Bureau of Naval Personnel Information Bulletin No. 342 (September 1945) & 343 (October 1945)
Service: Navy
Rank: Captain

Related Articles

William Sample ‘19 was also lost in this crash.

Navy Directories & Officer Registers

The "Register of Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps" was published annually from 1815 through at least the 1970s; it provided rank, command or station, and occasionally billet until the beginning of World War II when command/station was no longer included. Scanned copies were reviewed and data entered from the mid-1840s through 1922, when more-frequent Navy Directories were available.

The Navy Directory was a publication that provided information on the command, billet, and rank of every active and retired naval officer. Single editions have been found online from January 1915 and March 1918, and then from three to six editions per year from 1923 through 1940; the final edition is from April 1941.

The entries in both series of documents are sometimes cryptic and confusing. They are often inconsistent, even within an edition, with the name of commands; this is especially true for aviation squadrons in the 1920s and early 1930s.

Alumni listed at the same command may or may not have had significant interactions; they could have shared a stateroom or workspace, stood many hours of watch together, or, especially at the larger commands, they might not have known each other at all. The information provides the opportunity to draw connections that are otherwise invisible, though, and gives a fuller view of the professional experiences of these alumni in Memorial Hall.

References