LCDR WILLIAM E. PENNEWILL, USN
Lucky Bag Yearbook
From the 1929 Lucky Bag:
WILLIAM ELLISON PENNEWILL
Class Football 2. Class Baseball 4. Two Stripes.
WHAT state’s delegates signed the Declaration of Independence first? What state leads all the p—rades? In short, what’s the best state in the Union? Why, Delaware, of course." So thinks Beanie and although we don’t all fully agree with him, we do consider it a pretty good place, to have produced such an affable and congenial person as our friend Bill.
While attending that noble institution of learning, known as Dover High, Bill helped form the nucleus of all the important athletic teams representing that worthy school; but upon entry to the Naval Academy he found that he had probably taken his studies at Dover a little too lightly. As a consequence he has found the demands of the Athletic Department overridden by those of “Academics.” The Varsity’s loss has been the class and company’s gain in more than one instance when Bill has represented ‘29 or the fighting 8th in a successful engagement.
Bill says he’s a Red Mike, and we hate to doubt his word, but we have our suspicions. No doubt he has striven to stick to his standards, but like the rest of us has succumbed to the wiles of the weaker sex.
After having Beanie as a classmate for four years we do not hesitate to state that he is held in the highest regard. We have no fear but that, being a gentleman, he will prove himself an officer worthy of the Blue and Gold.
Loss
William was lost on June 23, 1942 when the F4F-4 he was piloting crashed near NAS Kodiak, Alaska. The September 1946 issue of Shipmate indicates he was the commanding officer of Escort Scouting Squadron (VGS) 12 and that the crash occurred “on runway.”
Other Information
From researcher Kathy Franz:
William was an honor graduate of Dover High School in 1925. He was vice-president of the senior class.
For six months, he was a dive-bombing instructor attached to the Army. He was mostly stationed in Pensacola until the outbreak of WWII.
He married Lucy Metcalfe Reilly on September 28, 1933, in an Episcopal church in Long Beach, California. Their two children were William, Jr., and Christopher. In early June, 1942, she had just returned to Pensacola from Seattle, Washington, where she spent some time with William.
His parents had visited him and his wife in Savannah to celebrate his birthday in February 1942.
His father William was a wholesale fruit broker, mother Katherine, and sister Katherine (Mrs. Howard E. Lynch, Jr.)
He is buried in Delaware and was survived by his wife.
Namesake
USS Pennewill (DE 175) was named for William; the ship was sponsored by his widow.
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.
October 1929
January 1930
April 1930
January 1931
April 1931
July 1931
October 1931
January 1932
April 1932
October 1932
January 1933
April 1933
July 1933
October 1933
April 1934
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
William is one of 26 members of the Class of 1929 on Virtual Memorial Hall.
