Lucky Bag Yearbook

From the 1940 Lucky Bag:

CHARLES PERRY MASON, JR

Charlie

Football 40, 4, 3; Lacrosse N*, 4, 3, 2, 1; Soccer Squad 2, 1; 1 Stripe.

Charlie is a rather quiet fellow at heart, but never misses out on the brighter side of things. He is very sincere in all that he undertakes and has set a high goal for himself — which we are confident he will attain. Charlie has shown marked ability along athletic lines, and is enough of a driver to use his spare time always to best advantage. Charlie is a great one with the fair sex and rarely misses an opportunity to further the noble pursuit of “snaking.” The best of shipmates, we hope to see lots of him in the coming years. Success to you. Charlie.

Loss

Charlie was lost in an aircraft accident near Fallon, NV on September 11, 1944. (Information from the now-defunct Class of 1940 website.) His Helldiver bomber was on night exercises when it crashed near the mouth of Stillwater creek, 15 miles northeast of Fallon.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Charles attended Severn Preparatory School.

He married Cornelia Amoss Lee on July 1, 1942, in Sarasota, Florida. He was survived by his widow and their 10-month-old son Charles III.

Charles’ forefathers founded Newport, Pennsylvania. In December 1939, his grandmother Gertrude Rider Mason, wrote that he had an old map which showed how his ancestors gave plots of ground for the first school and post office.

From his grandfather’s Wikipedia entry:

He and his wife raised their grandson C. P. Mason III after his daughter in law was killed in a car crash. C. P. Mason III graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and became a naval aviator.

He has a memory marker in Florida.

Photographs

From the Lucky Bag

This photograph is a detail from the book THE SLIPSTREAM, MARK V EDITION(Corpus Christi, TX, [1945], p. 167. The caption reads: "Lt. Charles Perry Mason II addresses a Rotary Club Christmas Luncheon with Chaplain [Thornton] Miller and his father, Admiral Mason at the Speaker's table." Source

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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.