Lucky Bag Yearbook

From the 1926 Lucky Bag:

John Jarvis Crane

Jig Jig Ichabod

Basketball Squad (3, 2); Class Basketball (2, 1), Numerals (2); Lacrosse Squad (4, 3), Navy Numerals (4, 3).

“WHO is that big handsome boy over there?” This question is the invariable query of one’s drag when she first sees him. Does he give them a second look or thought? No! He remains aloof and disdainful. But he has a very inquisitive nature when it comes to the intricacies of Art. He asked a dancer at the Follies-Bergere where she learned that dance and he has been trying to do it ever since.

Besides this weakness he has a craving for extra instruction from the Executive Department. There was one month though, when he caused much sorrow in the Executive Department: he did not get a single demerit. It was such a wondrous feat that the home paper immediately elevated him to fame. Extra!! “Toledo Boy Stands One in Class.” Alas little did they know that four hundred others stood the same.

It is very seldom that the Ac Departments caused him much worry. Not so much because he labored diligently but because he was naturally gifted. If you ask him why he is so gifted he will reply that he is from Toledo. And he will laugh and laugh because he knows all along that that is not the reason.

Loss

John 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:

John graduated from Waite high school in 1922. Senior Ring Committee, Chairman; Forum Literary Society, Secretary ’22; Retina Board, Comics ’21 (Isn’t John Crane a “comic(al)” editor?); Organizations ’22; Hi Y Club. How Various People Will Spend their Summer: Cully Berndt will hire J. Crane to take him back and forth from Langdon Street to Stickney Avenue in his Ford. Class Prophecy: Yes I know John Crane was the new superintendent of Toledo schools. He won much favor by eliminating tests from the school curriculum.

John was the first commanding officer of the submarine Tuna when the boat was commissioned at Mare Island Navy Yard.

Due to his health, John quit active submarine duty and became an aide to Admiral Robert English.

He married Imogene St. Clair on September 2, 1926, in Toledo. In 1940, she was a publication editor, and their daughter Joan was 16 years old.

On October 3, 1942, John flew on the China Clipper from Honolulu to California.

His father was Dan, a gardener/greenhouse farmer, mother Florence, and brother Dan, Jr.

He is buried in the Naval Academy Cemetery, near his young son, John Jr., who died in 1934. He was also survived by his wife, who in 1951 was the sponsor of USS Bass (SSK 2).

Photographs

From his 1920 high school yearbook

From his 1921 high school yearbook

From his 1922 high school yearbook

Career

From the now-broken link http://www.fleetorganization.com/subcommandersclassyear2.html:

• Duty Bureau of Engineering/Bureau of Ships 1 Jan 1939 - 1 Jul 1940
• Duty cfo Tuna 1 Nov 1940
• Captain USS Tuna (SS-203) 2 Jan 1941 - 7 Dec 1941
• Staff Submarine Squadron Eight Mar 1942

• Engineering & Maintenance Officer COMSUBPAC Aug 1942 - Jan 1943
• Lieutenant 30 Jun 1936
• Lieutenant Commander 1 Jul 1940

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.

Related Articles

Robert English ‘11, Donald Godwin ‘11, Robert Smith ‘20, Francis Black ‘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.