CDR FRANCIS L. BLACK, USN
Lucky Bag Yearbook
From the 1926 Lucky Bag:
Francis Louden Black
Rifle Squad (4); Masqueraders (2); Lucky Bag.
A NAME to conjure with! But what? Truly, however, Alice is a man of astuteness, and his singular denseness of air at times is made up for by his brilliance at others. His nickname, we would explain, was acquired from the expression of virginal fairness that rests on his countenance.
Alice is a Snake of the first water, or, if you prefer, a water snake, and he thrives on punishment. Upon the usual presentation of the brick he would merely laugh the matter off in his dry Scotch way and on the next opportunity you would see him at it again.
As an athlete he was, to say the least, all around. His fond boast is that he went out for every N. A. sport at some time or other during his sojourn. I recall how many times I have ducked just in time to have a chip of ear flecked off with a lacrosse stick or turned to receive the ball squarely in the eye.
He is a mean man to get in an argument with, for he never admits defeat but will hold his ground against all logic.
All the friends he had here remember the boxes from Steubenville, which, perhaps, had something to do with his oft-repeated breaking of his oft-repeated resolution “I have got to get down to strict training now.”
Loss
Francis was lost on January 21, 1943, when the aircraft he was aboard crashed near Ukiah, California while enroute from Pearl Harbor to San Francisco. The flying boat, a Pan Am Clipper, was being operated by Pan Am employees but was a contracted Navy flight, and all ten passengers were Navy officers.
Other Information
From researcher Kathy Franz:
Francis was a member of Admiral Nimitz’s staff.
His wife was Anna, and when he died, she lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
His father Robert was a furnace maker, mother Myra, brother Robert, and sisters Annabelle, Margaret (who died young) and Mary.
He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Career
He was promoted to Commander in December 1942.
Related Articles
Robert English ‘11, Donald Godwin ‘11, Robert Smith ‘20, John Crane ‘26, William Myers ‘26, John Coll ‘27, and George Stone ‘31 were also lost in the crash of Pan Am Flight 1104. Eight of the ten passengers were Naval Academy graduates.
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.
October 1926
January 1927
April 1927
July 1928
October 1928
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October 1930
January 1931
July 1931
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January 1932
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October 1933
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October 1934
January 1935
April 1935
October 1935
January 1936
April 1936
July 1936
January 1937
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September 1937
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July 1938
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October 1939
June 1940
November 1940
April 1941
Francis is one of 33 members of the Class of 1926 on Virtual Memorial Hall.
