ERNEST D. CODY, LT, USN

Ernest Cody '38

Date of birth: September 22, 1914

Date of death: August 16, 1942

Age: 27

Lucky Bag

From the 1938 Lucky Bag:

ERNEST DEWITT CODY

Mayville, Michigan

Ernie

Six years ago Ernie said: "Mom, I think I'll be a sailor." Appointments happened to be scarce just then out thar in Michigan, so he enlisted with the Academy as his goal. After serving aboard the U.S.S. Tennessee, he crashed the Fleet's picked "prep" class and directly joined '38. Ol' Dewey, as the folks at home call him, was plenty salty when we got him and he's kept right on getting more so. Now and then his views have not coincided with those of the Academic Departments, but he's always beaten them to the punch. Through four years we've found Ernie like his name, earnest and sincere, and moreover a true friend. He doesn't wear any stars, but they will get a mighty fine man and a good officer when he goes back to the Fleet.

Batt. Soccer 2, 1; Boat Club 3, 2, 1; Ensign.

ERNEST DEWITT CODY

Mayville, Michigan

Ernie

Six years ago Ernie said: "Mom, I think I'll be a sailor." Appointments happened to be scarce just then out thar in Michigan, so he enlisted with the Academy as his goal. After serving aboard the U.S.S. Tennessee, he crashed the Fleet's picked "prep" class and directly joined '38. Ol' Dewey, as the folks at home call him, was plenty salty when we got him and he's kept right on getting more so. Now and then his views have not coincided with those of the Academic Departments, but he's always beaten them to the punch. Through four years we've found Ernie like his name, earnest and sincere, and moreover a true friend. He doesn't wear any stars, but they will get a mighty fine man and a good officer when he goes back to the Fleet.

Batt. Soccer 2, 1; Boat Club 3, 2, 1; Ensign.

Loss

Ernest was lost on August 16, 1942 when he disappeared from the airship L-8 during a patrol off the coast of San Francisco, California.

Other Information

From SF Museum:

One of the most enduring mysteries of World War II, and one still not solved, was the disappearance of the crew of the blimp L-8 of the Navy Airship Squadron, which lifted off from Treasure Island at 6:03 a.m., August 16, 1942, to patrol near the Farallones.
At 11:15 a.m., bathers near the Olympic Club golf course saw the ship drift to shore then briefly touch down on the Ocean Beach near Ft. Funston, where a depth charge aboard the ship exploded on impact.
L-8 finally crashed on Bellvue Ave. in Daly City. The crew of the airship was not aboard and no trace of them was found.

From San Francisco Call-Bulletin on August 18, 1942:

LAND HUNT FOR BLIMP CREW ABANDONED
The Navy has given up its land search for the two-man crew of the derelict blimp which crashed Sunday, its crew missing, in a Daly City street, it was announced today.
The sea hunt for the two officers—Lieutenant Ernest DeWitt Cody, 27, pilot and Ensign Charles Adams, 38, co-pilot—is continuing and they are not conceded to be dead.
A Twelfth Naval District spokesman said: "The land search is completed. The area from the spot where the blimp first touched ground and its final resting place has been thoroughly covered. The Navy is positive the men were not in the ship at any time during its derelict flight over land."
The men may be somewhere in the ocean, buoyed up by their "Mae West" lifebelts or possibly safe on a radio-silent surface craft, it was indicated.
If they left the airship at sea their lifejackets will hold them up "indefinitely," it was explained.
Meanwhile, Navy operations experts professed themselves mystified by the strange accident. While explaining that certain operational data was being held confidential, of necessity, a spokesman said: "Nothing the Navy knows now has given a satisfactory explanation of what happened."
James Riley Hill, young aviation machinist’s mate, third class, revealed he would have been a third passenger on the doomed ship but for a last-minute decision by his commander.

He has a memory marker in Arlington National Cemetery. He was survived by his wife, Helen Augusta Haddock, to whom he was married in May 1940. She later remarried.

Photographs

From The News Journal on August 18, 1942

Career

From naval aviation historian Richard Leonard via email on February 9, 2018:

Date of rank LTJG from 1 Jul 1941 USN Register, 6/2/1941

NAS Lakehurst attached for LTA flight training, 6/30/1941

NAS Lakehurst designated NA # 10431, 12/31/1941

Date of rank LT from 1 Jul 1942 USN Register, 6/15/1942

ZP-32 (Det) FASW-31 3 NAS Treasure Island KIFA BNR, 8/16/1942

Ernest was piloting L-8 and delivered "important equipment" to USS Hornet (CV 8) immediately before the Doolittle Raid in April 1942.

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.