DAVID E. CUMMINS, LCDR, USN

David Cummins '18

Date of birth: January 18, 1895

Date of death: April 4, 1933

Age: 38

Lucky Bag

From the 1918 Lucky Bag:

DAVID ERVIN CUMMINS

Prescott, Arkansas

"Dave" "Domingo" "Dimples"

"YOU poor nut, whada yer want to do, tear my p-jams?" You can be sure Dave has just finished a rough-house. It's just his nature. Strange to say, he never gets sore or rhino, even when he doesn't receive that daily "carta" from "somewhere in the U. S. A." He is the popular boy to be sure. After making a thorough acquaintance here on earth he ascended to higher realms. Second class year found the "Puddin" spending his leave studying aviation in the Hackensack Meadows. Just another turn of his nature; he's progressive. However, there surely must be some attraction above this earth or Dave wouldn't be there. He says he's in the business because he loves it, but we believe he's in the business for "love."

"Oh, bebby, she's coming down tomorrow. Come kiss me."

Puddin-head hasn't paid much attention to athletics, although he takes his weekly workout. Plebe year he made the class basketball squad and in fact has tried every form of exercise including early spring football, cross country runs, and starvation. He has a special hunch of his own, and it seems to work wonders. About every two months he knocks off a meal a day because as he says "I feel much better, and besides it gives me more pep." Every Wednesday after the regular "workout" he dolls up and dashes out to town to see the "little one."

Talk about the cruises being dull! Just make one with Dave. You will be sure to have an "extensive" time, especially on a liberty. When he draws out that little leather book of addresses, well, stand by—"Which one will it be?"

Books never seem to worry him, yet he always pulls through with plenty of velvet. Enter his room at any time and he is always at your service. It's a question whether he knows any more about it than you do, but David will do his durndest to help you over the rough places.

"Come on Puddin, let's go out in town." "Oh I can't." "Just lookee here at all these letters that just gotta be answered."

Football Numerals (4); Basketball Numerals (4, 3); Buzzard

The Class of 1918 was graduated on June 28, 1917 due to World War I.

DAVID ERVIN CUMMINS

Prescott, Arkansas

"Dave" "Domingo" "Dimples"

"YOU poor nut, whada yer want to do, tear my p-jams?" You can be sure Dave has just finished a rough-house. It's just his nature. Strange to say, he never gets sore or rhino, even when he doesn't receive that daily "carta" from "somewhere in the U. S. A." He is the popular boy to be sure. After making a thorough acquaintance here on earth he ascended to higher realms. Second class year found the "Puddin" spending his leave studying aviation in the Hackensack Meadows. Just another turn of his nature; he's progressive. However, there surely must be some attraction above this earth or Dave wouldn't be there. He says he's in the business because he loves it, but we believe he's in the business for "love."

"Oh, bebby, she's coming down tomorrow. Come kiss me."

Puddin-head hasn't paid much attention to athletics, although he takes his weekly workout. Plebe year he made the class basketball squad and in fact has tried every form of exercise including early spring football, cross country runs, and starvation. He has a special hunch of his own, and it seems to work wonders. About every two months he knocks off a meal a day because as he says "I feel much better, and besides it gives me more pep." Every Wednesday after the regular "workout" he dolls up and dashes out to town to see the "little one."

Talk about the cruises being dull! Just make one with Dave. You will be sure to have an "extensive" time, especially on a liberty. When he draws out that little leather book of addresses, well, stand by—"Which one will it be?"

Books never seem to worry him, yet he always pulls through with plenty of velvet. Enter his room at any time and he is always at your service. It's a question whether he knows any more about it than you do, but David will do his durndest to help you over the rough places.

"Come on Puddin, let's go out in town." "Oh I can't." "Just lookee here at all these letters that just gotta be answered."

Football Numerals (4); Basketball Numerals (4, 3); Buzzard

The Class of 1918 was graduated on June 28, 1917 due to World War I.

Loss

David was lost on April 4, 1933 when the airship he was aboard, J-3, crashed while looking for survivors of USS Akron (ZRS 4) over the Atlantic Ocean near New Jersey. One other officer aboard was also lost.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

In May, 1910, David took second place in the 220 yard hurdle race and third in the standing broad jump at his school’s field day events. He won the Andrews medal for the best essay on the “Country Editor.”
From The Nevada County Picayune, May 31, 1910:

In all the broad range of newspaper making as applied to the country press, there is no more fruitful field than that of local illustration. By local illustration is meant the picturing of local events.
The success of a newspaper, I think we will all admit, depends to a large extent to the making up of the paper by the editor. A great deal of the editors of the country newspapers either cannot get the news or else falls down in trying to write it. A good news paper editor should know his territory thoroughly. He should print the news when it is news. There is only one way to get news, and that is suggested in six small letters – HUSTLE; an editor cannot get up a good local paper by staying in the office and trying to get the news over the telephone, they should always make a personal visit to the place.
On Saturdays the streets of the town is full of people, and the editor or his reporter should arrange to spend that day among them, and in touch with them.
The business end of a country newspaper is its most important end. It is the end that requires the most constant care and watchfulness. A country paper may be said to rest on three columns: the local column, the editorial column and the business column. And the greatest of these is the business column; for when it fails, the whole fabric falls, and the sheriff makes his call.
Every country editor knows how hard it is to get good local news, but almost every village and town can be organized to furnish good copy, and if I were to suggest an improvement for a weekly paper, it would be to get as much of what actually happens as possible, so that the subscribers would feel satisfied that they were not being neglected in the matter of news at least. I think the fault of most country newspapers is that they allow their columns to go stale by printing news that is old. I realize that a weekly paper has to cover the events of a week, but I do believe that the news that is fresh should be given a prominent display. For instance, if the paper goes to press on Thursday the news that happens Wednesday night or Thursday morning just before press time, should be given display heads to attract the reader of fresh news.
The editor of the paper in a small town should in a quiet and unassuming way seek the acquaintance of all classes of people in his town and community, especially an intimacy with the leaders, for there is nothing that is a greater impetus to success in a public man than a large host of friends and acquaintances in the community in which he resides and operates.
Every editor should stand for something. There has been no period in the world’s history when there was more need of standing for something. They should stand for what they think is right, stand for a clean city, a larger, and busier city.”

David played the groom in the comic play “Fun on the Podunk Limited” in April, 1911. Proceeds benefited the Athletic Association. He played third base for the high school team in 1911 and graduated in 1913.
He entered the Navy in November 1913. He was at the school for yeoman at North Point, Rhode Island, when he received a nomination to the Naval Academy from Representative Goodwin of Arkansas in February, 1914.
He married Dorothy Adeline Hasbrouck on May 5, 1919, in Washington, D. C. Her father was a Navy captain. David and Dorthy had two children: Martha and David, III.
In October 1919, David was made navigator of the cruiser St. Louis.
His father David was a farmer, mother Mattie, and brothers Roy and Dr. Brice Cummins who served in the Army in WWI. In 1910, his grandmother Sarah Cummins lived with them.
From the Daily News, New York City, April 6, 1933:

Heroism of two New York City air cops, who risked their own lives to rescue five members of the crew of the wrecked Navy blimp J-3 when it crashed into the sea off Beach Haven, N. J., Tuesday, will be appropriately rewarded, Commissioner Mulrooney declared yesterday.
Belittling their own courage and rescue work, the two aerial policemen, Sergt. Joseph Forsythe and Patrolman Otto Kafka, praised Lieut. Commander David E. Cummins, lost commander of the blimp, as the unsung hero of the tragedy.
Praise Navy Hero.
“He gave up his own life to save his men,” Kafka said yesterday at Floyd Bennett Airport, as Forsythe nursed an injured hand, from which he had lost two finger tips during his rescue work. A propellor nipped them as he was pulling a man aboard who had slipped off a wing.
“I never saw such sheer, cool courage in all my life,” Kafka continued.
“He was the first one we saw as we came up to the wreck. He was in a life belt, floating fifty feet from the fluttering ruins of the big bag, and about 100 feet from us.
Waves Engulfed him.
“He waved us away and pointed to the other men floundering in the water, hampered by their heavy flying togs. He apparently was telling us to never mind him but get the others. We couldn’t hear what he was saying on account of the wind and roar of the motor.
“While we were taking the five rescued men ashore, clinging to the under-wing of the plane, Cummins went down under the buffeting of the heavy waves. He was picked up dead half an hour later.”

He was designated naval aviator (lighter-than-air) #3931 in 1932.

He was survived by his wife, Dorothea; they are buried together in Arlington National Cemetery.

Photographs

From The Baltimore Sun on April 5, 1933

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.