TRUMAN E. CARPENTER, LTJG, USN

Truman Carpenter '32

Date of birth: June 15, 1909

Date of death: January 5, 1938

Age: 28

Lucky Bag

From the 1932 Lucky Bag:

TRUMAN ERNEST CARPENTER

St. Johnsbury, Vermont

"Carp" "Tru" "B. B. B."

"Carp" hails from the rocky hills of Vermont where they don't have a Navy and his life has been one surprise after another ever since he left the little farm back home. Plebe summer "Carp" stepped in the ring for the first time and captured the heavyweight boxing championship of his class. Not content with this he proceeded to paddle one of those shells all over Severn River and its tributaries. His "Youngster" cruise consisted of a shell, a transatlantic liner full of co-eds, and finally a battleship. "Carp" is just six-feet two of good fellowship and a real pal. He doesn't have any trouble with "Acs" though he isn't especially fond of the language they speak in Barcelona. However, he has never had to burn the midnight oil. When "Tru" came to the Academy Plebe year he really had an O.A.O. but now try to count 'em! Oh, no, he isn't a ladies' man though we suspect the ladies wouldn't mind as the weekly and sometimes daily box of fudge proves. "Carp," you have the right stuff and we wish for you and know that you will achieve success.

Plebe Crew; J. V. Crew, NA; Class Boxing; Boxing, NA: Lysistrata Cup; 2 Stripes.

TRUMAN ERNEST CARPENTER

St. Johnsbury, Vermont

"Carp" "Tru" "B. B. B."

"Carp" hails from the rocky hills of Vermont where they don't have a Navy and his life has been one surprise after another ever since he left the little farm back home. Plebe summer "Carp" stepped in the ring for the first time and captured the heavyweight boxing championship of his class. Not content with this he proceeded to paddle one of those shells all over Severn River and its tributaries. His "Youngster" cruise consisted of a shell, a transatlantic liner full of co-eds, and finally a battleship. "Carp" is just six-feet two of good fellowship and a real pal. He doesn't have any trouble with "Acs" though he isn't especially fond of the language they speak in Barcelona. However, he has never had to burn the midnight oil. When "Tru" came to the Academy Plebe year he really had an O.A.O. but now try to count 'em! Oh, no, he isn't a ladies' man though we suspect the ladies wouldn't mind as the weekly and sometimes daily box of fudge proves. "Carp," you have the right stuff and we wish for you and know that you will achieve success.

Plebe Crew; J. V. Crew, NA; Class Boxing; Boxing, NA: Lysistrata Cup; 2 Stripes.

Loss

Truman was lost on January 5, 1938 when the seaplane he was aboard crashed approximately 100 miles from Hawaii while on a training flight. Six others aboard were also lost.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Three hundred navy planes and 24 warships searched for the 33,000 pound, twin engine, service patrol bomber.
Born in Texas, Truman graduated from St. Johnsbury Academy in 1928. He won the $10 Dr. C. A. Cramton gold prize and shared the $5 Daughters of the American Revolution gold prize with a classmate. Truman was guard on the school basketball team, and his brother Dick was the center. In a track meet in May, 1928, Captain Truman won the discus with Dick taking second; Truman took third in the javelin throw with Dick first; and Truman cleared the high jump bar at a little over five feet with Dick tying for third.
He was appointed to the Naval Academy by Senator Porter H. Dale.
Truman married the former Elsie Marjorie Hyde at her home on the day he graduated from the Naval Academy.

He has a memory marker in California.

He earned his wings as naval aviator #4157 on October 30, 1935.

Family & Remembrance

From Truman's granddaughter, Susan Holte, via email on January 24, 2020:

My grandfather married my grandmother just after he graduated from the Naval Academy and had two daughters before he died. My grandmother was Marguerite Hyde, nickname Maggie. Their first daughter was Patricia Carpenter, born 2/25/1933, and my mother, Sally Ann Carpenter was the youngest, born 11/12/1936. Grandfather's loss devastated my grandmother and she never remarried. Both my mother and aunt have passed away.
Aunt Patty married and had one child, Michael Winters who is alive. My mother married a Naval Academy graduate (class of 1955) and they had 5 children. Our father and my youngest brother have passed away also.
I heard stories of him. He was a humorous, thoughtful, intelligent man. He was well loved by everyone.
My grandmother held the belief for most of the years I knew her, that my grandfather was lost on a Pacific Island. She thought he had been captured by the Japanese. Our government did not give her information about his death and classified the information refusing to tell her anything about the incident. They pronounced him dead very soon after the incident. I have since found out that the plane likely exploded when the copilot mixed the fuel. They found a design flaw and changed the design after the incident. It's a shame they didn't tell her.

From the Caledonian-Record (St. Johnsbury, Vermont), January 12, 1938:

By “Deak” Morse
While attending the local [St. Johnsbury] Academy, [Truman] set up an enviable record, both scholastically and athletically and marked himself as a young man to be watched. Both he and his brother, Dick, were of unusual physique and both were in the Academy at the same time. It was there that Truman proved that he could take it as well as dish it out. As brothers will on occasions, the Carpenter boys frequently had their differences of opinion and never hesitated to fight them out with their bare fists. The walls of the Academy gymnasium must still re-echo with the thud of the blows those young 200 pound giants landed on each other. Yet I have seen them playing basketball together the same evening in the little Passumpsic Town Hall and when some opposing athlete got a little tough with either one of them the two of them put their backs against the wall and invited the whole visiting team to pitch in.

Photographs

From The Courier Journal on January 7, 1938

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.