JOHN J. KEOUGH, LT, USN

John Keough '40

Date of birth: May 2, 1917

Date of death: April 19, 1944

Age: 26

Lucky Bag

From the 1940 Lucky Bag:

JOHN JOE KEOUGH

Austin, Texas

Joe

Fortunately Joe shall always be (according to his own graphic description) "a long, ropey Texan." A shy but piercing glance from lowered head, a phrase drawled with an inherent rustic lilt, and an entrancing open smile have cooperated successfully in drawing to him countless friends and leaving no enemies. Swimming is Joe's fait accompli, but he conducts himself in all sports with the grace of natural prowess. That he doesn't concentrate on others may be laid to his love of versatility or to a modest restraint. Joe draws much from life, for he lives it with a philosophical candor and with cheerfulness.

Swimming N, 4, 3, 2, 1; Excellence in Great Guns; 2 Stripes.

JOHN JOE KEOUGH

Austin, Texas

Joe

Fortunately Joe shall always be (according to his own graphic description) "a long, ropey Texan." A shy but piercing glance from lowered head, a phrase drawled with an inherent rustic lilt, and an entrancing open smile have cooperated successfully in drawing to him countless friends and leaving no enemies. Swimming is Joe's fait accompli, but he conducts himself in all sports with the grace of natural prowess. That he doesn't concentrate on others may be laid to his love of versatility or to a modest restraint. Joe draws much from life, for he lives it with a philosophical candor and with cheerfulness.

Swimming N, 4, 3, 2, 1; Excellence in Great Guns; 2 Stripes.

Loss

Joe was lost in an aircraft accident near Hawaii on April 19, 1944. He was a member of Fighting Squadron (VF) 28.

Other Information

From the Austin American Statesman on April 23, 1944:

Lt. John Joe (Buddy) Keough, 26, a 1940 graduate of the US Naval academy, is missing in action in the Pacific, where he was on duty as a navy pilot.
Lt. Keough is the son of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Keough of 1108 West 11th street. His wife and their year-old daughter, Jo Ann, are at present in Aptos, Calif.
An Austin high graduate, Lt. Keough attended the University of Texas in 1935 and 1936 before his appointment to the academy. A swimming star, he won the best all-around water man’s trophy his freshman year in the university.
He graduated from Annapolis in 1940 and was serving on the USS Brooklyn when he received his transfer to the air corps. Keough won his pilot’s wings at Pensacola, Fla., in 1942, and he was married in August of that year to Miss Marjorie De Forest of New York. She and Jo Ann have been living in California while Lt. Keough was overseas.
A sister, Mrs. Gerald C. Raines, lives in Austin and another sister, Miss Anna Lou Keough, is attending the UT school of nursing at Galveston.

He has a memory marker in Arlington National Cemetery.

Note that the Courts of the Missing in Hawaii lists him as a LCDR. Some sources also have his date of death as April 15; we will defer to his headstone, which has April 19 and Lieutenant.

Photographs

From the Lucky Bag
From the Austin American Statesman on April 23, 1944.

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.