Lucky Bag Yearbook

From the 1923 Lucky Bag:

Herbert Moore Wescoat

Westy Herb

Wrestling Squad (4); Class Wrestling (3); Numerals (3); Expert Rifleman.

APOLLO take a back seat; Herbert Moore Wescoat, athlete and fusser supreme, hath arrived. A man with a past, present and future.

Sir Galahad II is a R. S. M. (regular sailor man) and we can easily understand why his mail curve approaches a vertical line. He is indeed a remarkable chap, but like some mortals he has a failing—foo foo and women. His attendance and endurance at all the hops is nothing short of marvelous. He delves deeply into the intricacies of social life and balances a cup of tea with no mean ability. Herb stars in fireside courses, altho he couldn’t always “sketch and describe” entropy.

With the advent of a Naval Holiday Herb will sign a contract with Mack Sennett (Them diaphanous basketball pants done it!)

As a student he is admired, as a classmate he is loved, and as a lover he is in a class by himself.

“I don’t let my studies interfere with my education.”

Loss

Herbert was lost when the airship USS Akron (ZRS 4) crashed off the coast of New Jersey on April 4, 1933.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Herbert traces his family line back to his great-great-great grandfather Isaac (1784-1849) who was born in Pennsylvania and died in Ohio. Herbert’s father was Charles, a clothing salesman, and his mother was Edna who died in 1920. They along with Herbert’s great-great grandfather Philander and grandfather Nathan are all buried in the Elk Cemetery, too.

In May, 1926, Herbert attended the Chemical Warfare School at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland.

He married Dorothea Knight Brevoort on May 2, 1931, in Manhattan. They had no children. His widow married William Henry Ashford, Jr. (‘27,) on June 16, 1934, in Norfolk, but the marriage ended in divorce. On August 18, 1948, she married Russell B. Tobey whose father was a U. S. senator and past governor of New Hampshire.

In 1920, Herbert’s father Charles was a salesman for a clothing store in McArthur, and in 1920, he was a salesman in a grocery store in Elk, Ohio. When Herbert died, his father lived in Annapolis. His mother was Edna.

He is buried in Ohio.

Photographs

From the Daily News on April 5, 1933

Video

Akron’s executive officer, LCDR Herbert V. Wiley ‘15, one of only three survivors, was filmed shortly after the crash:

Related Articles

William Moffett ‘90, Fred Berry ‘08, Henry Cecil ‘10, Frank McCord ‘11, Harold Maclellan ‘18, Joseph Severyns ‘20, George Calnan ‘20, Richard Cross, Jr. ‘21, Robert Sayre ‘24, Charles Callaway ‘24, Hammond Dugan ‘24, Charles Miller ‘25, Charles Redfield ‘26, Wilfred Bushnell ‘26, and Cyrus Clendening ‘27 were also lost aboard Akron.

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.