LT JOHN M. DUKE, USN
Lucky Bag Yearbook
From the 1926 Lucky Bag:
John Martindale Duke
Wrestling Squad (2); Class Soccer (1).
HAVING achieved considerable success in ‘possum hunting, Ye Duke felt the need of bigger guns and smaller targets, which accounts for another pampered pet from the Volunteer State.
At a glance you would think Jawn reserved, almost shy; nothing could be further from the facts. While he exhibits that backwood’s grin he digests and files you, and five years later when you meet him in Lower Squankum he’ll hand you the Addison Sims of Seattle, “Of course I———etc.”
The Duke’s specialty is wrestling. Plebe year it was for a 2.5 in Math, and while it was a long bout our hero nosed the Academics out and it wasn’t a Semitic nose. Youngster year, attention went to the legitimate mat, and continued effort Second Class year brought toast with it.
Jawn also takes his turn in the Armory, and a week-end without a hop is a week-end wasted, almost. After all, as he admits, a week-end is a week-end.
What-Ho! has no great vices but there are a few things that might be told. When he brushes his teeth it sounds like an elephant taking a drink from a shallow pan. He thinks the “Lives of the Lady Killers” would be an autobiography, and that the Ashland City Announcer or whatever it may be is a newspaper.
Loss
John was lost on December 9, 1938 when the plane he was aboard collided with another and then crashed off Point Loma, California. He was a member of Fighting Squadron (VF) 2.
Other Information
From researcher Kathy Franz:
The planes were attached to fighting squadron 2, temporarily based at North Island from the aircraft carrier Lexington. They were engaged in gunnery training when they both dived on a sleeve target and collided.
John was appointed to the Naval Academy by Congressman Joseph W. Byrns.
He married Eleanor Carrington Stark of Norfolk in August 1928. They had two children, Eleanor and John, Jr.
John would usually land at the Clarksville Airport when he flew to Tennessee to visit his father.
His father John was a hardware store merchant, mother Josephine, and sisters Cora, Julia, Sarah, Nancy and Virginia.
He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. “Lt. Duke is survived by his wife, Mrs. Eleanor S. Duke and two children, Eleanor and Johnnie, who left for Norfolk this week.”
His class ring is in the collection of the US Naval Academy Museum.
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.
April 1927
October 1927
October 1928
January 1929
April 1929
July 1929
April 1930
October 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
John is one of 33 members of the Class of 1926 on Virtual Memorial Hall.
