FRANK M. ROBINSON, LTJG, USN

Frank Robinson '36

Date of birth: September 8, 1914

Date of death: March 17, 1941

Age: 26

Lucky Bag

From the 1936 Lucky Bag:

Frank Mason Robinson

Springfield, Massachusetts

"Punchie"

Meet Frank—he's different! He is a voracious reader of P.G. Wodehouse, an ardent movie fan, and a devotee of hill billy music but his specialty is chow. The call of the sea is deeply rooted in Punchie and he spends most of his Sept. leave cruising and knocking about on the water. Aside from his love of things nautical, Frank also has a decided bent toward athletics. He puts his whole heart into any undertaken sport and this combined with an inherent sense of sportsmanship make him hard to beat. Punchie is ambitious and conscientious but at the same time cheerful and easy going, so the struggles of academies have not weighed heavy on him. '36 gives to the Navy a fine man and an excellent officer.

Class Football 3, 1; Boxing 3, 2, 1. N.A.; Tennis 4; Two Stripes

Frank Mason Robinson

Springfield, Massachusetts

"Punchie"

Meet Frank—he's different! He is a voracious reader of P.G. Wodehouse, an ardent movie fan, and a devotee of hill billy music but his specialty is chow. The call of the sea is deeply rooted in Punchie and he spends most of his Sept. leave cruising and knocking about on the water. Aside from his love of things nautical, Frank also has a decided bent toward athletics. He puts his whole heart into any undertaken sport and this combined with an inherent sense of sportsmanship make him hard to beat. Punchie is ambitious and conscientious but at the same time cheerful and easy going, so the struggles of academies have not weighed heavy on him. '36 gives to the Navy a fine man and an excellent officer.

Class Football 3, 1; Boxing 3, 2, 1. N.A.; Tennis 4; Two Stripes

Loss

From Find A Grave:

Frank Mason Robinson, eldest child of Cmdr. Hugh Burton Robinson (USN Ret.) and Marion Willett Mason, b. of record Sept. 8, 1914 at Springfield, Mass. He was named after his maternal grandfather, Frank B. Mason.
Like his two-year younger brother Hugh Marston Robinson, Frank graduated from the Severn School, class of 1932, a Naval Academy preparatory school in Severna Park, Maryland. Frank was subsequently a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Class of 1936, with the rank of Ensign. In 1940 he was designated Naval Aviator #6463 and rank of Lieut. J.G. stationed at a Naval Air facility near Warrington, Florida.
By April 1940 at age 25, Frank had married an unidentified 22 year old Eleanor from Berkeley, CA. Unfortunately, on Mar. 17, 1941 during a flight near the Hawaiian Islands, he as the pilot of one aircraft was killed in a mid-air collision with another aircraft. From military researcher Mike Weeks:

On 17 March 1941, two TBD-1's (carrier-based torpedo planes) operating from the aircraft carrier USS YORKTOWN (CV-5) collided near Hawaii. Six servicemen perished, with only two bodies being recovered, that of the pilots, LTJG F. M. Robinson, USN, and ENS K. L. Berry, USNR.

Frank Mason Robinson was an 11th generation descendant of Rev. John Robinson (1576-1625) and Bridget White, the former the pastor at Leiden, Holland of the core 1620 Mayflower pilgrims who founded the Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts. Frank was also a 12th generation descendant of 1620 Mayflower passenger Edward Fuller. Whether at his death Frank left children is presently unknown.

He was flying with Torpedo Squadron (VT) 5. Frank is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

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.