Lucky Bag Yearbook

From the 1942 Lucky Bag:

FRANCIS A. RILEY

Mickey

Track 4; 1 Stripe.

Mickey doesn’t advertise his accomplishments, but when he joined our class from ‘41 via the hospital route, it was definitely our gain. His disarming smile and gift of blarney meet with complete feminine approval, but like a true Irish lad he loves deeply but not long. With his personality, suave and debonaire and at the same time sincere, Mickey will be a swell shipmate unless the Medical Board gets him.

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The Class of 1942 graduated on December 19, 1941, less than two weeks after the United States entered World War II. The class had previously been scheduled to graduate in February 1942.

Loss

Francis was lost when USS Albacore (SS 218) was sunk by a mine on November 7, 1944 while on patrol north of Hokkaido.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Francis was nominated to the Naval Academy by Representative Gardner R. Withrow of La Crosse. He did not take the mental examination as the academy accepted Francis’ certificate from the University of Wisconsin.

In January 1942, Francis sailed from Honolulu to San Francisco where he listed USS Helena as his address.

His father was Austin, a conductor on a steam railroad, mother Sylva, and sisters Jeanne and Margaret.

From John Duresky, a historian from La Crosse, Wisconsin, via email on October 21, 2019:

Found some old La Crosse Tribune newspaper articles. In the April 7, 1945 article reporting his death (news of KIA was slow back then, in particular if men were first listed as missing), it says he was first on USS Helena from the time he graduated until three weeks before it was sunk. Helena was damaged at Pearl Harbor, saw a lot of action there, went to drydock for repairs, then saw a lot more action I believe while he would have been on it. Helena was sunk July 6, 1943, so that puts Lt Riley in submarine service around May 15, 1943. The Albacore hit the carrier Taiho with torpedoes on June 6, 1944, so I would say there is a high probability that Lt Riley was on board during that mission which was incredibly gutsy when you read about it.

Lt Riley graduated in 1935 from Aquinas High School, a private Catholic school.

The wreckage site of the Albacore was confirmed in February, 2023.

His wife, Lillian Joan Riley, was listed as next of kin. Francis has a memory marker in Wisconsin.

Photographs

From the Lucky Bag