LION T. MILES, LT, USN
Lion Miles '31
Lucky Bag
From the 1931 Lucky Bag:
Lion Tyler Miles
Williamsburg, Virginia
"Leo" "Lion" "Tiger"
Leo is the third member of his family to choose the life and ways of the Navy for his career. In the four years that he has been with us, Leo has fully measured up to the ideals and standards set by his father and his grandfather and we are confident that he has the material in him to go a step farther.
While prepping at St. Paul's School, he was not content to make a showing in scholarship alone but turned his thoughts toward the literary world and the realm of sports and has continued to do so at the Academy. We are as proud of his medals and commendations as he is.
A constantly changing background has provided him with a wealth of colorful material for the tales he weaves. Had it not been for Leo, some of us would have been uneducated in the ways of the Navy Plebe year and would have suffered untold woes. He makes friends easily with his winning ways wherever he goes and can always be relied upon to lend a helping hand, no matter where it be: wardroom, bridge, or ashore.
Track Squad 4, 3, 2, 1 "NA"; Soccer Squad 2; Trident Society; Lucky Bag Staff
Leo was President of the Trident Society and a member of the Track Team.
Lion Tyler Miles
Williamsburg, Virginia
"Leo" "Lion" "Tiger"
Leo is the third member of his family to choose the life and ways of the Navy for his career. In the four years that he has been with us, Leo has fully measured up to the ideals and standards set by his father and his grandfather and we are confident that he has the material in him to go a step farther.
While prepping at St. Paul's School, he was not content to make a showing in scholarship alone but turned his thoughts toward the literary world and the realm of sports and has continued to do so at the Academy. We are as proud of his medals and commendations as he is.
A constantly changing background has provided him with a wealth of colorful material for the tales he weaves. Had it not been for Leo, some of us would have been uneducated in the ways of the Navy Plebe year and would have suffered untold woes. He makes friends easily with his winning ways wherever he goes and can always be relied upon to lend a helping hand, no matter where it be: wardroom, bridge, or ashore.
Track Squad 4, 3, 2, 1 "NA"; Soccer Squad 2; Trident Society; Lucky Bag Staff
Leo was President of the Trident Society and a member of the Track Team.
Loss
Lion was lost when USS Asheville (PG 21) was sunk by Japanese surface forces on March 3, 1942. There was only one known survivor of the sinking. Lion was the ship's executive officer.
Other Information
From Find A Grave:
He attended St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire. He entered the United States Naval Academy and graduated with the class of 1931. On June 22, 1932, he married Elizabeth Ennes Lighthite, daughter of Alice Ennes Lighthite in Yuma, Arizona.
He died during the Battle of Sunda Strait aboard the USS Asheville. He was the grandson of Dr. Lyon Gardiner Tyler, former president of the College of William and Mary and Annie Tucker Tyler. He was the great-grandson of President John Tyler, 10th President of the United States and Julia Gardiner Tyler. He was also the great-grandson of Colonel St. George H. Tucker and Elizabeth Gilmer Tucker.
His wife was listed as next of kin; he was also survived by at least one child (a son), and his parents. He has a memory marker in the Naval Academy Cemetery.
Lion’s appointment to the Naval Academy was announced in February 1927, by the Hon. A. J. Montague, member of Congress from the third district of Virginia.
The Daily Press, Newport News, Virginia, on July 10, 1927, published Lion’s poem entitled A Street in Tch’ong-K’ing-Foo:
Encased and overlapp’d by huts of mud and straw
There wends a narrow alley-way, crowded with humanity;
Toiling, sweating coolies their rickshas strain to draw;
Whilst some loathsome beggar there shrieks in mad insanity.
Now a shifty-eyed mandarin’s copper deigns to drop
And stalks across the cobblestones to a reeking pastry shop.
Whey Ah Ho! Hev Ah Ho! Venders cry their candied cakes.
A stumbling Chinese maiden with tiny bandaged feet,
Shrinking, shuns a leper with skin of snow-white flakes,
Comes an evil-eyed soldier, a braggart and a cheat.
Helps himself to what he likes of a helpless vender’s wares,
Who with face inscrutable unconcernedly stares.
A dark-clad priest of Buddha, muttering half aloud,
All unconscious of surroundings with shuffling sandaled feet,
Comes in thoughtful meditation; this head is lowly bow’d,
Glides into a temple as gloom settles in the street,
The red sun drops beneath the ridge, and mist is everywhere;
Amid the darkness of the street flit shadows here and there.
The Daily Press, Newport News, Virginia, on August 21, 1927, published Lion’s poem entitled Zamboanga!:
Zamboanga, Zamboanga by the opalescent sea!
Coral city set in pearl beneath the banyan tree,
Gently washed upon thy strand Neptune’s cloak of blue;
Stately palms in brilliant green, peaceful tropic hue;
Basilan’s misty mountain looming dark across the bay;
Fishing bancas bobbing out, before the break of day,
To catch the fleet tangingi in his lair so wild and free –
In Zamboanga, Zamboanga by the opalescent sea!Slender, bending coco palms hide birds of plumage gay;
Moro chieftans proudly lolling, clad in bright array,
Ebon pearlers, dusky pirates, men from Jolo’s distant Isle;
Mingling, cursing, jesting, seldom seen to deign a smile.
The heavens change abruptly to a multi-colored mass;
Into harbor glide lateens upon the sea of glass
The colors fade and disappear before night’s chill decree –
In Zamboanga, Zamboanga by the opalescent sea!
Lion authored an article in the August 1941 issue of the Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute titled "Three Cases Of International Law."
Photographs
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.
July 1931
October 1931
January 1932
April 1932
October 1932
January 1933
April 1933
July 1933
October 1933
April 1934
LTjg Oscar Pate, Jr. '27
LTjg Leonard Southerland '27
LTjg Frank Highley, Jr. '30
LTjg Robert Patten '30
LTjg Claud Hughes '30
LTjg Baylies Clark '30
July 1934
ENS Leo Crane '31 (Scouting Plane Squadron (VS) 10S)
October 1934
ENS Leo Crane '31 (Scouting Plane Squadron (VS) 10S)
January 1935
ENS Leo Crane '31 (Scouting Plane Squadron (VS) 10S)
April 1935
ENS Leo Crane '31 (Scouting Plane Squadron (VS) 10S)
July 1936
January 1937
April 1937
September 1937
January 1938
July 1938
LT William Hobby, Jr. '23
LT Richard Baron '24
LT Harold Pound '25
LT William Graham, Jr. '25
LT Andrew Harris '25
LT Hilan Ebert '26
LT John Bermingham '29
LT Egbert Roth '29
LT Victor Gaulin '30
LTjg Russell Ross '30
LT John Bisson '30
January 1939
LCDR Robert Bedilion '22
LCDR William Hobby, Jr. '23
LT Richard Baron '24
LT Harold Pound '25
LT William Graham, Jr. '25
LT Andrew Harris '25
LT Hilan Ebert '26
LT John Bermingham '29
LT Egbert Roth '29
LT Victor Gaulin '30
LT Russell Ross '30
October 1939
June 1940
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