LT WALTER D. LEACH, JR., USN
Lucky Bag Yearbook
From the 1924 Lucky Bag:
WALTER DENNISON LEACH, Jr.
Class Boxing (4); Boxing Team (3, 2, 1); bNt (3, 2); International Intercollegiate Welterweight Boxing Champion; Academy Welterweight Champion (2).
SEAMANSHIP exam, question— How to determine whether or not anchor is dragging? (“Doc’s” answer)—“Heave up on the anchor. If it is thoroughly caked with mud, the anchor has been dragging.”
(He got a 3.38 that month, and yet they say brains count). However, “Doc” doesn’t answer them all that way by a long shot.
He has always had trouble getting his habits to fit the schedule in vogue at the Academy. Whenever study hour busts, he simply has to caulk—that’s all. His pet trick is to sleep during the whole of the evening study period and then to set the alarm for 5 A. M. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that he gets up.
“See them hair? There are three now, but there used to be four.” These precious hairs are things he ever humors. With no less than five kinds of soap, eight brands of hair tonic, and crude, cocoanut and olive oils, has he labored in vain to coax others to join those lonely three.
The snakish side of his nature was slow in developing, but when it did—well, there is nothing slow about it now.
“Hey, Andy, kom het nar, mean neck.”
Loss
Walter was lost “when plane he was piloting during gunnery exercise was completely wrecked and crashed into the sea ten miles northwest of La Jolla, California. Wreckage and body sank at once and were not recovered.” He was a member of Bombing Squadron (VB) 5B, stationed at NAS San Diego.
Other Information
From researcher Kathy Franz:
Walter was born in Iowa. He married Virginia Elizabeth Graham at St. Luke’s church in San Francisco on December 14, 1926. Ensign Adolph Oswald (’24) was his best man. Walter’s children were Nancy and Walter, Jr.
Walter’s father, who was born in England, was a physician. His mother was Bertha of Chicago, and his brother was Bertram.
He was survived by his wife, Virginia, who remarried.
Walter has a memory marker in California. He was survived by a son, Walter D. Leach III. (Second to last posting on the page.)
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.
July 1924
September 1924
November 1924
January 1925
October 1926
October 1927
January 1928
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July 1928
October 1928
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April 1929
July 1929
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January 1930
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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
Walter is one of 39 members of the Class of 1924 on Virtual Memorial Hall.
