ROBERT R. OGG, CAPT, USMS
Robert Ogg '17
Lucky Bag
From the 1917 Lucky Bag:
ROBERT RENNIE OGG
Buffalo, New York
"Rennie" "Scotchman"
WHEN you have to write up some bone-headed nonentity and make people think without actually saying so that he is the acme of all that is significant of perfect manhood, it is no cinch, and it is a relief to take pen in hand and turn in a few brilliant remarks concerning such a man as Rennie Ogg.
The old Scotchman has had trouble from the start with the Dago Department, and it takes four hours of hard labor to get a lesson, but when it comes to technical subjects such as Steam and Juice, he can leave all but five or six of us hull down on the horizon. Like all Scotchmen he likes to see the wheels go round.
And when it comes to such arduous tasks as coaling ship, or bucking fires, does Rennie fear this? Not at all, he will fall asleep right alongside of it.
If athletics had interested him, he would probably have left his mark, for he has lots of strength and stick-to-it-ivness. But his bed has too strong an attraction and a fellow can't get his fourteen hours sleep between taps and six twenty.
You can't help liking Rennie when you meet him, and this liking increases when you really know him, for he is quiet, unassuming and independent. "Without mental reservation or purpose of evasion," we are here to state that Robert Rennie Ogg is a darn good, all-round man.
Buzzard, Basketball Numerals (4), Lacrosse Numerals (4)
The Class of 1917 was the first wartime-accelerated class, graduating on March 29, 1917.
ROBERT RENNIE OGG
Buffalo, New York
"Rennie" "Scotchman"
WHEN you have to write up some bone-headed nonentity and make people think without actually saying so that he is the acme of all that is significant of perfect manhood, it is no cinch, and it is a relief to take pen in hand and turn in a few brilliant remarks concerning such a man as Rennie Ogg.
The old Scotchman has had trouble from the start with the Dago Department, and it takes four hours of hard labor to get a lesson, but when it comes to technical subjects such as Steam and Juice, he can leave all but five or six of us hull down on the horizon. Like all Scotchmen he likes to see the wheels go round.
And when it comes to such arduous tasks as coaling ship, or bucking fires, does Rennie fear this? Not at all, he will fall asleep right alongside of it.
If athletics had interested him, he would probably have left his mark, for he has lots of strength and stick-to-it-ivness. But his bed has too strong an attraction and a fellow can't get his fourteen hours sleep between taps and six twenty.
You can't help liking Rennie when you meet him, and this liking increases when you really know him, for he is quiet, unassuming and independent. "Without mental reservation or purpose of evasion," we are here to state that Robert Rennie Ogg is a darn good, all-round man.
Buzzard, Basketball Numerals (4), Lacrosse Numerals (4)
The Class of 1917 was the first wartime-accelerated class, graduating on March 29, 1917.
Loss
Robert was lost at 10:20 pm local time on March 10, 1944 when he drowned at sea somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. He was a Captain in the US Maritime Service and on active duty as master of S/S John Owen. The Hawaiian Sea Frontier War Diary gives no other details on his loss, and states that a certified master was dispatched to Midway to take command.
Other Information
He was the president of the Master, Mate, and Pilot union local no. 14 (Baltimore) from 1938 until he resigned in 1942. (From now-broken link: http://bridgedeck.org/mmp_mags/1939/Vol.2_MMP_Mar1939_No.3.pdf)
From the March 21, 1944 edition of the Baltimore Sun:
CAPTAIN OGG DROWNS, WIFE IS NOTIFIED
With Maritime Service, Former Annapolis Man Buried at Sea
Capt. Robert Ogg, United States Maritime Service, a former instructor at the Naval Academy and president of the Masters, Mates and Pilots' Association here for four years,, has been drowned at sea, his wife, Mrs. Frances G. Ogg, of 104 West 28th Street, was informed last night by the War Shipping Administration.
At the same time, the War and Navy departments reported two other Marylanders killed in the line of duty in this country, two others missing in action overseas, and six wounded in action.
Captain Ogg, 48, had been on active duty with the merchant marine since 1942, when he resigned his presidency of the pilot's association. He had completed two tours of duty, to Russia and North Africa, and shipped out last December as master of a convoy vessel bound for the South Pacific.
No Details Given
The War Shipping Administration informed his wife he was "drowned and buried at sea" and revealed no other details.Born in Buffalo, N.Y., he was graduated from the Naval Academy in 1917 and was on active duty with the navy until 1929, when he returned to the Naval Academy as an instructor, with the rank of lieutenant commander.
He was retired from the navy several years later and became president of the Pilots' Association in 1938. He made his home in Baltimore for some time prior to going overseas.
Surviving besides his wife is a brother, John H. Ogg, of New York City.
From researcher Kathy Franz:
Robert graduated with honors from Buffalo Technical High School in 1911. That May, his article “Tools and the Man” was published in the school newspaper. In the spring of 1913, it was re-published in the school’s special edition entitled the Industrial Number.
Per the Buffalo Courier, May 12, 1911, the article gave a comprehensive review of the development of tools from man’s first crude ideas of these implements to the present age of mechanical arts. The article concludes: “At one time schools considered that they had rendered sufficient service to humanity if they gave to the individual the result of man’s experience only as it had developed his power of thought. Through literature, mathematics, history and science this experience was presented to the student and man’s intellectual growth was thus offered to him for his own particular profit. At the present day the school is not satisfied to do this only. It still undertakes to present all that has led to the humanization of the race in thought and mind, but it gives besides, the actual processes in labor by which the race has come to its present condition. This is one reason why technical schools have come into existence with such rapidity in recent years, and why larger and larger numbers of pupils are seeking the two-fold advantages which such schools offer them.”
In September, 1923, Robert sailed on the S. S. Santa Elisa from Cristobal, Canal Zone, to New York City.
He married Frances D. Powell on January 6, 1925, in Norfolk. In 1930, she was a clerk at a cleaners living with her dad in nearby Tanners Creek. The couple divorced in May, 1932, on the grounds of desertion for seven years.
In November, 1926, Robert sailed from Guam or Manila to San Francisco. His address was the Bureau of Naval, Washington, D. C.
In March, 1928, Robert was A. B. (able seaman) on the Cold Harbor which sailed from Boston to Manchester, England.
The next year, he was an instructor at the Naval Academy with the rank of lieutenant commander. He retired from the Navy several years later. He became president of the Masters’, Mates and Pilots’ Association in 1938.
In the 1940 census, Robert was now married to Frances Gregory (Smith.) In 1950, she had remarried and was now Frances G. Berg. Her husband was Gustaf from Sweden. He was a master for the merchant marine, and she was a sales girl in a dress shop. In 1938, Gustaf’s first wife Anna and their 15-year-old son Leroy had died.
Robert resigned his presidency of the pilot’s association in 1942 and went on active duty with the merchant marine.
On April 9 that year in Baltimore, Robert signed on the Am. S. S. Hollywood as 3rd mate. She arrived in New York City on January 7, 1943, from the port of Archangel, USSR, via St. Johns. Robert was 5’8”, 172 lbs.
In Baltimore on March 6, he signed on as chief officer on the S. S. George Sharswood for a journey to Anchorage. He was discharged from the ship in October, 1943.
In December that year, he shipped out as master of the convoy vessel S. S. John Owen bound for the South Pacific. She was sold to the Hammond Shipping Company in March, 1945.
Robert’s father was Charles R., a marine engineer, and his mother was Marie. His parents were both from Canada. This was Charles’ second marriage; her first. In 1900, the family included his brother John, born in 1897 in New York, and his three half-siblings, all born in Canada: Aleser, an engineer born in 1880; Christopher, a grocery clerk born in 1883; and Lillian born in 1885. Their great-aunt Johanna Fitzgerald from Ireland lived with them in Buffalo.
From the Baltimore Sun of March 11, 1945:
IN MEMORIAM
OGG.— In loving memory of our beloved CAPT. ROBERT R. who was killed Midway Base, March 10, 1944.
You gave us the last full measure of devotion for us all.
You understood men in every walk of life
Your memory shall be cherished by us forever.
As the grandest old skipper who ever sailed the seven seas.OFFICERS AND CREW OF HIS SHIP.
Notes
He appears in the Lucky Bag as "Richard;" this appears to be a typo as all other mentions found are to Robert. (Corrected in the Lucky Bag transcription above.)
April 1944 Shipmate: "ROBERT RENNIE OGG, '17, Captain, U. S. Maritime Service. Drowned at Sea in March 1944."
September 1946 Shipmate: "OGG, ROBERT R., Captain, US Maritime Service. Drowned and buried at sea. About 21 March 1944."
Register of Alumni: "Ogg, Robert Rennie 4/10/1944, CAPT USMS"
He is listed in the Register of Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps of 1921 with a rank of Lieutenant and a birthdate of April 26, 1895; this birthdate is identical to that given in the MMP magazine in 1939.
He is not on the US Merchant Marine list of casualties, though the site acknowledges it is an incomplete record.
The MMP did not respond to an email requesting information on August 3, 2018.
Photographs
From the magazine of the Master, Mate, and Pilot union
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 1919
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September 1923
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January 1927
Memorial Hall Error
Robert's omission was identified through the diligent efforts of Leslie Poche, a volunteer who combed through Shipmate issues to find operational losses not accounted for in Memorial Hall.
The "category" links below lead to lists of related Honorees; use them to explore further the service and sacrifice of alumni in Memorial Hall.
