Lucky Bag Yearbook

From the 1941 Lucky Bag:

RAY OLIVER PENROD

Battalion Baseball 4, 3; Company Softball 2; Battalion Football 4, 3, 2; Choir 4, 3, 2, 1; Black N.

Good old Penny, the fellow with the ready smile and even disposition—everyone’s friend. He is almost six feet tall, well built, and nice enough looking to change girls at the first of every month. Where he gets them, no one knows, but on the first day of every month the postman begins bringing letters on a different shade of stationery.

Penny didn’t specialize in any one sport but rather played them all. He is always on hand for battalion football and baseball, but baseball is his pride and joy. His home is Anna, Illinois, and he terms himself a country boy at heart—and proud of it. Academically, Penny has had one close call and that in his first year at the Academy.

He has the reputation of being one of the best dancers in the Academy. He is always ready for a party or a gab-fest and is always in the center of all the activity. He is a real shipmate—one you will always remember and certainly one who will never forget you.

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The Class of 1941 was the first of the wartime-accelerated classes, graduating in February 1941.

Loss

Ray was lost when USS Meredith (DD 434) was sunk by Japanese air attack on October 15, 1942.

Other Information

His wife was listed as next of kin.

Ray’s memory marker in Illinois says he was serving as Chief Engineer.

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.