Lucky Bag Yearbook

From the 1940 Lucky Bag:

MILTON LEON JARRETT, JR.

Mo

Swimming 40; Spanish Club; Quarterdeck Society; 1 Stripe.

For the past four years Milt has been an ideal companion, loyal, understanding, and, above all, dependable. He has never been menaced by academics, which his carefree nature and natural ability have permitted him to take in his stride. “Mo” spends a good many of his recreation hours athletically, engaging in tennis, swimming, golf, basketball, and workouts in the gym, all for the sheer sport of it. He drags often and well, but he has, as most of us, a soft spot in his heart for the “one and only.” “Mo” insists on singing, not only in the shower, but also as he cleans up the room, but after four years we are inured to it. Yes, we’ll even miss it.

Loss

From the Palm Beach Post on June 9, 1943:

Lieut. Milton Leon Jarrett, Jr., USN. 26; son of Mr. and Mrs. Milton Jarrett of Huntington. W. Va.. was killed instantly Monday in the crash of a training plane at the Naval Air Station here, Navy authorities announced Tuesday. Jarrett was graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1940 and reported for duty here May 29. Machinists Mate Albert Kessler Brown a passenger, was injured.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

His father was a civil engineer, mother Kathryn, and sisters Jane and Ann.

He is buried in West Virginia.

Photographs

From the Lucky Bag

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.