Lucky Bag Yearbook

From the 1945 Lucky Bag:

Paul Kenneth Hunt

“P. K.” left the happy University of California only one step removed from the fellow who thought the Naval Academy was coeducational. The upper classmen took great pains to make sure that Ken found out about all the trials of plebe year. That they were successful in making “P. K.” into a midshipman was evidenced by the number of stripes he wore on his blue service sleeve. Blessed with enviable athletic ability, “P. K.” was at ease on almost any field of athletic endeavor. His staid qualities and reserved manner, along with his exceptional wit and amiable personality disclose a unique individual.

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He was the commander of the 2nd Battalion (2nd set).The Class of 1945 was graduated in June 1944 due to World War II. The entirety of 2nd class (junior) year was removed from the curriculum.

Loss

Paul was lost on August 4, 1947 while “practicing carrier landings in a Scout bomber.”

Other Information

From the Oakland Tribune on August 5, 1947:

Lieut. (jg) Paul Kenneth Hunt, a Berkeley graduate of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, was killed yesterday when his plane crashed while practicing carrier landings at Bronson Field, Fla.

Word of the accident was received by his family, which reported he was nearing the completion of his flight training at the time of the crash.

Hunt served on destroyers during the war and had transferred to the air branch at the close of hostilities. He was appointed to Annapolis in 1941 by the late Congressman John Tolan while Hunt was a freshman at the University of California.

The flier was the son of John E. Hunt Sr., a consulting mining engineer…

According to reports from the field, Hunt’s single engine plane went into a spin, crashed and burned 300 yards from the auxiliary landing strip.

Other survivors, besides his father, and three brothers, John E. Hunt Jr., Peter J. Hunt and Cecil Hunt.

Paul is buried in California.

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Joseph Sheehan ‘45 and John Glynn ‘45 were also in 16th Company.