Lucky Bag Yearbook

From the 1937 Lucky Bag:

ELI ROTH

Eli

Boxing. C. P. O.

From the Big City came a beardless, but not mustacheless, youth filled with optimism. The Navy soon stripped him of his mustache, but his optimism remains. Undismayed by minor reverses in Math and Steam, he gets his marks in Dago and Bull. A voracious reader, he devours anything printed. Although he is pacifistic by nature, you would never guess it to see him dancing around any afternoon in fearsome fighting pose, preparatory to a few rounds in the ring. And for four years he has been the kind of a roommate who would lend you his last stamp or make your bed for you on hop nights.

Loss

Eli was lost when USS La Vallette (DD 448) was struck by a torpedo on January 30, 1943 during the Battle of Rennell Island. He was the damage control and engineering officer. Twenty-one other men were killed in the attack.

Other Information

His wife was listed as next of kin; they are buried together in Hawaii.

Another officer, LTjg Chuck Witten, wrote that Eli had a son born shortly after they had left for the war. Chuck visited Eli’s widow and child at some point later while on leave.

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.