Lucky Bag Yearbook

From the 1940 Lucky Bag:

HOWARD DEAL MERRILL

Ute

Boat Club; Boxing 4, 3; Excellence in Great Guns; 1 Stripe.

Howard was one westerner who really didn’t have to go far away to taste salt water. Plebe summer and plebe year were easy for him because he learned quickly that the Commandant’s cat ranked above a plebe. He was a confirmed “Red Mike,” for he found interest in things that never disturbed one’s sleep or studies; he is one of the gifted few that know what to leave alone. Academics were just an easy hurdle to him, with a view of better things yet to come. Hailing from the Rockies, he brought a little of their ruggedness and determination with him. Once Ute makes up his mind, not even dynamite can change it.

Loss

Howard was lost in USS Arizona (BB 39) during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Born in Provo, Utah, Howard’s mother Eliza (Dottie) Merrill died shortly after his birth. His father Dr. Leslie S. Merrill and Howard moved to Ogden. He graduated from Ogden High School and attended Weber college. He was appointed to the Naval Academy by Representative Abe Murdock.

Howard was a member of the LDS church and was active in scouting and church activities. He was survived by his father, stepmother Stella Peterson Merrill, brother Bruce, sister Dorothy, and an aunt Etta Merrill.

His father was listed as next of kin.

Howard has two memory markers in Utah; he is also remembered at the Courts of the Missing in Hawaii.

Photographs

From the Lucky Bag

From The Ogden Standard Examiner on December 12, 1941

From The Ogden Standard Examiner on June 2, 1940

Namesake

USS Merrill (DE 392) was named for Howard.

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.