BURTON F. HAKER, LCDR, USN

Burton Haker '40

Date of birth: May 30, 1917

Date of death: August 19, 1948

Age: 31

Lucky Bag

From the 1940 Lucky Bag:

BURTON FRANK HAKER

Cleveland, Ohio

Butch

The salty sea and the freedom of the winds caught the imagination of this young Ohioan, and Ohio lost a stalwart son. Versatility is his keynote. His accomplishments are many and varied. He is as much a man's man as was ever the celebrated Benvenuto Cellini. Academics, he takes in stride. Worries, he has none, excepting perhaps the time his Dad's check was late. The boy has a heart like a pumpkin between his broad shoulders, and staying sore at a guy like Butch is impossible. He can and will succeed at anything, if his interest is sufficiently aroused. Stay in there, Burton.

Lacrosse N.A., 3, 2, 1.

BURTON FRANK HAKER

Cleveland, Ohio

Butch

The salty sea and the freedom of the winds caught the imagination of this young Ohioan, and Ohio lost a stalwart son. Versatility is his keynote. His accomplishments are many and varied. He is as much a man's man as was ever the celebrated Benvenuto Cellini. Academics, he takes in stride. Worries, he has none, excepting perhaps the time his Dad's check was late. The boy has a heart like a pumpkin between his broad shoulders, and staying sore at a guy like Butch is impossible. He can and will succeed at anything, if his interest is sufficiently aroused. Stay in there, Burton.

Lacrosse N.A., 3, 2, 1.

Loss

According to Skyhawk Association VA-72 Blue Hawks: "August 19, 1948: Squadron commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander B. F. Haker, lost at sea." He had taken command only a few weeks earlier, on July 6.

The November 1948 issue of Shipmate adds that that the crash was in the Atlantic area but gives no other information.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

One week before the December 7 attack on Pearl Harbor, Burton left on the Lurline with Ensign Stanley Hindman (‘39).
His father, Roger, was proprietor of a bowling academy in Compton, California. His mother Hazel died in 1929. Burton married Agnes S. Worley in Camden, North Carolina, on 8/10/1946.
Burton was flying a fighter plane attached to the carrier Leyte on maneuvers when it fell into the sea.
Services were held in the Dixie Kiefer chapel at Quonsett, Rhode Island, where Burton’s wife Agnes lived.

Photographs

From the Lucky Bag
From The St, Louis Star and Times on December 20, 1941

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.