LESTER H. KERN, LCDR, USNR
Lester Kern '23
Lucky Bag
From the 1923 Lucky Bag:
Lester Herman Kern
Bayonne, New Jersey
"Goop" "Alliwishus" "Thug" "Gunboat"
FOUR years ago Alliwishus on starting for New York hopped on the wrong train and finally landed in Crabtown. Being a sea-going chap, he has remained with us through four never-to-be-forgotten years.
Goop shows promise as a skipper because he has passed the Academic Rocks and Shoals with but little effort. Nothing worries the old boy—not even getting bucked ruffles his temper. As a snake, he has no equal. When he is dragging, which is every week-end, a mere trifle like extra duty never bothers him. Being naturally non-reg, he just forgets about E. D., and shouts "On with the dance!"
On Youngster cruise, our New Jersey representative showed promise as a boxer, but he preferred to be a member of the Radiator Club, in which he is a gay luminary as a bridge shark. Once a year, he forsakes the Club in order to play on the class water-polo team and incidentally, to show the boys how Daniel Boone did it.
Class Water-Polo (3, 2), Numerals (2).
Lester Herman Kern
Bayonne, New Jersey
"Goop" "Alliwishus" "Thug" "Gunboat"
FOUR years ago Alliwishus on starting for New York hopped on the wrong train and finally landed in Crabtown. Being a sea-going chap, he has remained with us through four never-to-be-forgotten years.
Goop shows promise as a skipper because he has passed the Academic Rocks and Shoals with but little effort. Nothing worries the old boy—not even getting bucked ruffles his temper. As a snake, he has no equal. When he is dragging, which is every week-end, a mere trifle like extra duty never bothers him. Being naturally non-reg, he just forgets about E. D., and shouts "On with the dance!"
On Youngster cruise, our New Jersey representative showed promise as a boxer, but he preferred to be a member of the Radiator Club, in which he is a gay luminary as a bridge shark. Once a year, he forsakes the Club in order to play on the class water-polo team and incidentally, to show the boys how Daniel Boone did it.
Class Water-Polo (3, 2), Numerals (2).
Loss
Lester was lost on November 24, 1943 when USS Liscome Bay (CVE 56) was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine.
He survived the sinking and was rescued by USS Morris (DD 417), but died shortly afterwards and was buried at sea.
Other Information
From researcher Kathy Franz:
Lester married Katharine J. Schuerholz of Baltimore on May 31, 1924. The wedding was held in the captain’s cabin on the USS New York anchored five miles off Annapolis.
In April 1925, Lester was on duty at the Naval Torpedo Station in Newport, Rhode Island. He spent three years in service and then worked for a New York Insurance agency.
In 1930, he and his wife lived in Roselle Park, New Jersey, where he was a statistician for a brokerage company.
He reentered the Navy shortly after Pearl Harbor and left for active duty in the Pacific on October 31, 1943.
In 1920, his father Herman was a milk dealer for a dairy, and his mother Annie was born in England. His sisters were Louise (Mrs. Stanley Kip), Elizabeth (Mrs. Angukson Vliet), and Gladys (Mrs. Jack Metz of Clermont, Florida). His nephew Jackson Vliet III, Elizabeth's son, was also lost during the war.
Lester was a LCDR in the Navy Reserve, DVE-V(S), which was applied to "Officers of the Volunteer Reserve to the line for special service in deck and engineering duties." It's not clear what his duty aboard Liscome Bay was.
His wife was listed as next of kin; the following year she was residing in Baltimore.
Photographs
Related Articles
Henry Mullinnix '16, Irving Wiltsie '21, Finley Hall '29, Charles Ostrom '30, and George Williams '40 were also lost in Liscome Bay.
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.
September 1924
November 1924
January 1925
March 1925
May 1925
January 1927
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