OWEN S. MURPHY, FC3, USN
Owen Murphy '43
Owen Sylvester Murphy, Jr. was admitted to the Naval Academy with an At Large appointment on July 7, 1939 at age 20 years 3 months.
Lucky Bag
Owen Sylvester Murphy, Jr., is listed with 195 others below this inscription:
NOT ALL OF US who joined the Class of '43 stayed with us to that one broad stripe. Many fell at the end of plebe year, the casualty list mounted at the end of youngster year and a very few left us when the course was almost run. Reasons were varied and diverse: academic tangles, physical disabilities, civilian leanings.... Many went into civilian occupations, some were drafted, others became flyers and a few volunteered for foreign military service. Some left us early, many stayed for a long while, but none will be forgotten.
According to the Annual Register of the United States Naval Academy 1940-1941 he left on March 8, 1940 because he was “Deficient in studies, first term's work. Continued with class pending reexamination. Reexamined and again deficient. Recommended to be dropped. Permitted to resign.”
Loss
Owen was lost when USS Juneau (CL 52) was sunk on November 13 by Japanese submarine I-26 at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. All but ten men perished in the initial sinking or in the 8 days before they were rescued.
He enlisted in October 1937; by October 1938 he was a first class seaman stationed aboard USS Arkansas. At that time he was one of the 95 enlisted men selected for the Naval Academy Preparatory School, then held in Norfolk, Virginia. He was from Highland Falls, New York. (Information from Middletown Times Herald.)
In the 1940 census he was a fire controlman third class, listed as living with his father Owen, mother Alice and sister Lydia, a music teacher. In the 1920 census, his father was Sgt 1st Class at West Point.
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