RICHARD W. MEYERS, LT, USN

Richard Meyers '36

Date of birth: March 12, 1914

Date of death: March 1, 1942

Age: 27

Lucky Bag

From the 1936 Lucky Bag:

Richard William Meyers

Columbia City, Indiana

"Dick"

"Pull your knees together" is the cry that goes up when Dick walks in to join the gang for he is the sole possessor of a pair of legs typical of an ambling grizzly. For that matter, no grizzly could be more gruff than Dick is when he sits down to study—his first remark invariably is "Now where in the hell do they get that dope?" Immediately following this we hear muttering about Einstein and three hours to get this. We smile to ourselves for this mask fails completely to hide the true cheerfulness and comradeship that really befits him. Dick likes all sports but his greatest love considering inanimate things only is music. To his other great interest in life, we pay tribute—Miss Columbia City, we heartily approve of your choice.

Track 4; 150 lb. Crew 2; Class Football 1; Art Club; One Stripe

Richard William Meyers

Columbia City, Indiana

"Dick"

"Pull your knees together" is the cry that goes up when Dick walks in to join the gang for he is the sole possessor of a pair of legs typical of an ambling grizzly. For that matter, no grizzly could be more gruff than Dick is when he sits down to study—his first remark invariably is "Now where in the hell do they get that dope?" Immediately following this we hear muttering about Einstein and three hours to get this. We smile to ourselves for this mask fails completely to hide the true cheerfulness and comradeship that really befits him. Dick likes all sports but his greatest love considering inanimate things only is music. To his other great interest in life, we pay tribute—Miss Columbia City, we heartily approve of your choice.

Track 4; 150 lb. Crew 2; Class Football 1; Art Club; One Stripe

Loss

Richard was lost when USS Edsall (DD 219) was sunk on on March 1, 1942 by Japanese surface and air forces. He was the ship's 1st Lieutenant.

Other Information

From the Class of 1936's "Golden Lucky Bag," published in 1986 (via Marianne Bradley, daughter of LCDR John Ellis '36, USN (Ret.)):

Mrs. William M. (Adrienne) Kammerer
17895 Frondoso Drive
Rancho Bernardo
San Diego, California 92128
Dick served his junior officer years in the battleships Nevada and New York and the cruiser Houston. In 1937, while his ship was undergoing overhaul at the Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California, he met Adrienne Potter and they were married in 1938. After a brief tour at Pensacola, Florida, Dick received orders to the Asiatic Fleet. The Meyers traveled to Manila where Dick reported aboard the destroyer Edsall where his classmate, Phil Wild, was attached. Adrienne, with other dependents, was evacuated from the Philippines in November 1940.
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Edsall was at Balikpapan in the Dutch East Indies. After searching for survivors of the British warships Prince of Wales and Repulse, she joined the cruiser Houston at Surabaya to escort a convoy to Darwin, Australia. On 20 January 1940, while in company with three Australian corvettes, Edsall sank the Japanese submarine I-124 off Darwin.
On 27 February 1942, while Edsall, in company with the destroyer Whipple, was escorting the seaplane tender Langley from Fremantle, Australia, to Java, nine enemy bombers attacked. Langley was hit and abandoned and the surviving crew members were rescued by the two destroyers. Two days later, on 1 March 1942, Edsall was headed for Tjilatjap, Java, when she was caught in the gunfire of two large Japanese warships and was sunk with all hands.
Dick was one of that small, courageous band of officers who held the line in the Far East until the Navy could muster the force to defeat the Japanese in the Southwest Pacific. He is survived by his widow, Adrienne, who is now married to Colonel William Kammerer.

His wife was listed as next of kin. He has a memory marker in Indiana. (Note that his memorial marker has a different date; unclear why this would be. All other records have the date of Edsall's sinking as his date of loss.)

Photographs

Photo from the Class of 1936's "Golden Lucky Bag," published in 1986.

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.