FRANCIS M. MAILE, JR., CDR, USN

Francis Maile, Jr. '15

Date of birth: January 1, 1892

Date of death: January 28, 1939

Age: 47

Lucky Bag

From the 1915 Lucky Bag:

Francis Marlin Mail

Vincennes, Indiana

"El Ganso" "Francis of Old Vincennes"

A MAN that you can depend on, is our florid friend from Indiana. Tall and smiling in general, a most amiable sort of fellow—Ganso has a will of his own and never fails to express his honest opinion, whether it pleases or not. A better friend could not be wished, and he is ever ready to give a substantial proof of his friendship under any of the many trying circumstances which daily come up in our Academic life. He has good, sound judgment, forethought, and is very conservative in all decisions. Willing to criticise only when asked, and receives adverse criticism with a smile, so long as it comes from a friend.

Gus has proved his ability in many respects at the Academy. He has done excellent work in the crew, retaining a seat in the second boat for several years despite his light weight. He is a decided success as a fusser, although he fusses only in spells, therein differing from Handsome Dan.

He showed exceptional ability as Chairman of the Class Ring Committee. He gave to the Class a ring which has proved unanimously satisfactory and the method he used in getting this ring was well worthy of an older head. From the very beginning he has been one of our most popular classmates and will be one of the most missed by members of the Class who do not go with him to Fleet.

"Who is the queen next hop, Gus?"

"Ah! I am off that stuff this year."

Chairman Class Ring Committee; Class Crest Committee; Second Crew (3, 2).

Francis Marlin Mail

Vincennes, Indiana

"El Ganso" "Francis of Old Vincennes"

A MAN that you can depend on, is our florid friend from Indiana. Tall and smiling in general, a most amiable sort of fellow—Ganso has a will of his own and never fails to express his honest opinion, whether it pleases or not. A better friend could not be wished, and he is ever ready to give a substantial proof of his friendship under any of the many trying circumstances which daily come up in our Academic life. He has good, sound judgment, forethought, and is very conservative in all decisions. Willing to criticise only when asked, and receives adverse criticism with a smile, so long as it comes from a friend.

Gus has proved his ability in many respects at the Academy. He has done excellent work in the crew, retaining a seat in the second boat for several years despite his light weight. He is a decided success as a fusser, although he fusses only in spells, therein differing from Handsome Dan.

He showed exceptional ability as Chairman of the Class Ring Committee. He gave to the Class a ring which has proved unanimously satisfactory and the method he used in getting this ring was well worthy of an older head. From the very beginning he has been one of our most popular classmates and will be one of the most missed by members of the Class who do not go with him to Fleet.

"Who is the queen next hop, Gus?"

"Ah! I am off that stuff this year."

Chairman Class Ring Committee; Class Crest Committee; Second Crew (3, 2).

Loss

From The New York Times on January 30, 1939:

NEWPORT, R.I., Jan. 28.--Commander Francis M. Maile Jr. died of "acute heart failure," brought on by his being thrown into the water after he had set down his seaplane today off the naval air base at Gould Island, Narragansett Bay.

He was "taxiing to a landing ramp at the naval station" when his plane capsized. The date of his loss was January 26, 1939.

He had been rescued from drowning in the incident.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Francis went by Frank in his youth. He was vice president of Class “VII” in the 1909 yearbook of Lincoln Vincennes high school. He graduated in 1910. In that yearbook under his picture, it read: “All hail! Frank Mail with dignity approaches. A Crank is Frank, but that brings no reproaches; Comes in, we grin. We sigh when he has “went.” For he, you see, we always want present.” In the senior play “Sylvia,” Frank played William, an honest farmer.
In June 1910, Francis was designated a cadet for West Point by Representative William A. Cullop. In February 1911, Francis attended a reception for President and Mrs. Taft as the guest of Representative and Mrs. Cullop. At the time, he was attending an army and navy preparatory school in Washington, D. C. In July, he passed the examination for the Naval Academy.
After graduation from the Naval Academy in June 1915, he was on the battleship Michigan.
He married Mrs. Pauline Eleanor (Bennett) Gates of California on June 3, 1921, in Manhattan. They divorced sometime after July 1936.
When Francis was commander at Coco Solo, he and others greeted the navy dirigible Los Angeles and her Commander Charles Rosendahl (’14). The dirigible landed at Colon in late February 1928.
Francis sailed from Cristobal to New York City in April 1929.
In February 1936, Francis became the assistant naval attaché at the American Embassy in Berlin, Germany. He arrived in Berlin in April. The previous month, German troops had just reoccupied the demilitarized Rhineland ignoring the Versailles treaty. In July, Charles Lindbergh and wife spent a week in Berlin. Francis was one of the greeters when they arrived at the Staaken Airport.
Francis watched the rise of Hitler over the next two years. In March 1938, Austria was annexed to Germany. Francis sailed from Hamburg on May 26, 1938, arriving in New York City on June 5. His mother had just died at her home on May 20.
His father John was a farmer.

Francis is buried in Indiana.

Photographs

From the 1915 Lucky Bag
From his high school yearbook
From the St, Louis Globe Democrat on January 26, 1939

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.

January 1916

Ensign, USS Arkansas

January 1917

Ensign, USS Arkansas

March 1918

Lieutenant, USS Arkansas

January 1919

Lieutenant, USS Arkansas

January 1920

Lieutenant, USS Radford

January 1921

Lieutenant, under instruction, Naval Academy

Others at this command:

LCDR Millington McComb '10
LCDR John Fletcher '11
LT James Kyle, Jr. '15

LT Ryland Tisdale '15
LT Warner Portz '15

LT Theodore Chandler '15
ENS George Calnan '20

January 1922

Lieutenant, under instruction, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Others at this command:

LT James Kyle, Jr. '15

ENS George Calnan '20