LCDR WARREN F. GRAF, USN
Lucky Bag Yearbook
From the 1927 Lucky Bag:
Warren Frederick Graf
Basketball: A Squad (3, 2, 1) N* Block N (2); Baseball: A Squad (3, 2, 1) Navy Numerals (3, 2): Water Polo: Class (3) Class Numerals (3); Star (4, 2).
THE French word, gauche, hardly applies to this sailor, even though he is a left-hander. How many times have you seen his port crane toss a basket or southpaw a hot one into the catcher’s mitt? Lady Luck rarely smiles when he is looking. She usually laughs, and as a result her laughter has of late been met with indifference. Whether it be basketball, baseball, Academics, or the game of life, Bim goes places and does things without the help of that fickle lady.
Part of his life has been spent in the subways, and part in the northern frontier of Washington. He starts to tell you of how he helped supply the family larder with venison, and ends with an account of the World Series in Philly.
“I see by the Oraville Gazette that they have killed another cougar near the town pump. Now that reminds me of the time — —” and he is off with some of the weirdest tales that ever came out of the West. And he vouches for every one of them.
Contact with the throngs coupled with experiences in the far West, where they keep mountain lions for house pets, have given to Bim an unusually clear-sighted and enduring philosophy. His main code of life is activity, and who was it that said, “Actions speak louder than words”? That is our Bimbo.
Loss
Warren was lost when USS Juneau (CL 52) was sunk at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal on November 13, 1942.
Other Information
From researcher Kathy Franz:
Born in Buffalo, New York, Warren graduated as valedictorian from Philadelphia’s Northeast High School in 1923.
He married Janet Warren Rodney in San Mateo, California, on June 3, 1929. Their daughter Katharine was born in 1931.
In October, 1936, Warren attended The Chemical Warfare School at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland.
His father was Herman, a physician and private nurse, and his mother was Nellie.
His wife was listed as next of kin. He is included at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial.
Photographs
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.
January 1928
April 1928
July 1928
October 1928
January 1929
April 1929
July 1929
October 1929
January 1930
April 1930
October 1930
January 1931
April 1931
July 1931
October 1931
January 1932
October 1932
January 1933
April 1933
July 1933
October 1933
July 1934
October 1934
January 1935
April 1935
October 1935
January 1936
April 1936
July 1936
January 1937
April 1937
September 1937
January 1938
July 1938
January 1939
October 1939
June 1940
November 1940
April 1941
Warren is one of 41 members of the Class of 1927 on Virtual Memorial Hall.
