JOSEPH A. FLYNN, CAPT, USN

Joseph Flynn '27

Date of birth: December 12, 1904

Date of death: July 30, 1945

Age: 40

Lucky Bag

From the 1927 Lucky Bag:

Joseph Ambrose Flynn

New Haven, Connecticut

"Red" "Joe"

"TIS better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all" quoth our redheaded Joe one morning and then took a picture from the locker door. Such is the view that this young man takes toward life.

Books never worried him in the least - that is school books. His Irish luck would get him out of any hole. Oh yes! he's Irish—and proud of it. He is more or less wooden but can handle a shovel with dexterity when he has a corn cob in his mouth. Full of wit he is quite the lightest thing we have ever seen.

He dragged heavy Youngster year until he went unsat in Math and Skinny. So he decided to study. And he did—story books. By the grace of a few kind-hearted profs that couldn't resist the lure of his curly red hair, he remained with us and again took up the pursuit of the elusive fair sex.

Shanty started his naval career by entering the athletic fields, but he soon fell to the charms of Lady Fatima and Lord Chesterfield. One morning, Plebe Summer, Mick was roughly awakened to find himself in what seemed a heavy sea; the deck afloat and the bed careening wildly on the table. Since then he has been the champion rough-houser of the deck. Never getting angry and seldom boring, the whole deck is willing to sit and watch him perform—which he loves to do.

Football: Class (1) Class Numerals (1); Boxing: Class (3).

Joseph Ambrose Flynn

New Haven, Connecticut

"Red" "Joe"

"TIS better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all" quoth our redheaded Joe one morning and then took a picture from the locker door. Such is the view that this young man takes toward life.

Books never worried him in the least - that is school books. His Irish luck would get him out of any hole. Oh yes! he's Irish—and proud of it. He is more or less wooden but can handle a shovel with dexterity when he has a corn cob in his mouth. Full of wit he is quite the lightest thing we have ever seen.

He dragged heavy Youngster year until he went unsat in Math and Skinny. So he decided to study. And he did—story books. By the grace of a few kind-hearted profs that couldn't resist the lure of his curly red hair, he remained with us and again took up the pursuit of the elusive fair sex.

Shanty started his naval career by entering the athletic fields, but he soon fell to the charms of Lady Fatima and Lord Chesterfield. One morning, Plebe Summer, Mick was roughly awakened to find himself in what seemed a heavy sea; the deck afloat and the bed careening wildly on the table. Since then he has been the champion rough-houser of the deck. Never getting angry and seldom boring, the whole deck is willing to sit and watch him perform—which he loves to do.

Football: Class (1) Class Numerals (1); Boxing: Class (3).

Loss

Joseph was lost in USS Indianapolis (CA 35) when she was sunk by a Japanese submarine on July 30, 1945. He was the ship's executive officer.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

From Honolulu Star-Bulletin, August 15, 1945

GUAM, Aug. 15. (AP) – Two great explosions flashed out of her slim bow at 12 minutes past midnight. Flames streaked through her shock darkened passageways, searing the piled bodies of her crew into shapeless masses. Within 15 minutes she plunged headfirst into the sea.
That was the end of the proud cruiser Indianapolis, torpedoed 450 miles off Leyte July 30 with 883 dead and missing, after she had finished a record speed run from San Francisco to Guam to deliver the first atomic bomb to the B-29s.
She apparently fell prey to a Japanese submarine. . . . Ten officers and 305 enlisted men lived through the torture.
The captain ordered all engines stopped. Radiomen tried in frantic desperation to click out this appeal for help. It was no use. There was no power.
Then the ship’s executive officer, Cmdr. Joseph Flynn, Vallejo, Cal., reported the cruiser was fast filling and the skipper told him to pass the word: “Abandon ship.”
Cmdr. Flynn also is missing. . . .
The cruiser tilted severely first to about 25 degrees, then 60 degrees. . . . The ship rolled over to a full 90 degrees. . . .
The Navy explained no effort had been made to locate the cruiser until she was 54 hours overdue.

Joseph graduated in 1922 from New Haven high school where he was a member of Alpha Iota Epsilon.
He left Pearl Harbor in August, 1941, and his address was listed as the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Its 1943 yearbook reported that he was head of the department of Naval Science and Tactics in the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps.
His wife was Anna, and their daughters were Anne Marie and Carleen.
His father was Charles, a café proprietor, mother Ellen and brothers Charles, Harold and Francis.

His wife was listed as next of kin. Joseph has a memory marker in Arlington National Cemetery.

Photographs

From the University of Minnesota's 1943 yearbook
From the University of Minnesota's 1944 yearbook. "At the June Week ceremonies, Harold Morton receives his award from Commander Baer while Lieutenant Commander Flynn looks on."
From the University of Minnesota's 1944 yearbook

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.