Lucky Bag Yearbook

From the 1960 Lucky Bag:

JON ELDEN SURRATT

Jon came to the Academy via NAPS and the Marines. He quickly caught onto the system. However, his major complaint about life on the Severn was the academic part of the week, which kept interrupting his weekend card games. When not engaged in a hot poker game, he could be found in the sack reading anything not academic. But whenever the need arose to put on the pressure with the studies, he surprised even himself. Jon’s unfailing ability to surmount whatever obstacles confront him will assure him his well-deserved success.

Loss

Jon was lost on February 11, 1969 when the SP-2E patrol bomber he was aboard crashed in the Santa Ana mountains shortly after taking off from the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, California. All aboard were lost; they had been in the area for two weeks of antisubmarine training. All were members of “Naval Air Reserve Patrol Squadron 64E2”, based at Twin Cities Naval Station, Minnesota. (Note: unable to find any other mention of this squadron. The aircraft, BuNo 131487, was assigned to Patrol Squadron (VP) 62.)

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Jon graduated from Sterling High School in Illinois in 1952. Football; Basketball; Tennis; Bowling; “S” Club. School Prophecy: Jon and two classmates are playing exhibition tennis in Europe.

He graduated from the School of Law in 1968 and was admitted to the Minnesota Bar. He served as legal officer at the Naval Air Station and was to leave active duty next month to practice law. He was with the squadron as flight-training officer.

Funeral services with military honors were held at the Naval Air Station Chapel in Minneapolis. He was also survived by his parents Mr. and Mrs. William Surratt, two brothers, and three sisters.

He is buried in Minnesota, and was survived by his wife, “Carole Southall Surratt, three sons Michael, Roger and Jack, and one daughter Leslie.” (Information from May 1969 issue of Shipmate.)

The daughter of one of the other crewmen aboard posted a video of a visit to the crash site in 2012.

Photographs

From his high school yearbook

From his high school yearbook