ULMONT I. WHITEHEAD, JR., ENS, USN

Ulmont Whitehead, Jr. '40

Date of birth: March 13, 1915

Date of death: December 7, 1941

Age: 26

Lucky Bag

From the 1940 Lucky Bag:

ULMONT IRVING WHITEHEAD, JR.

Hartford, Connecticut

Monty

Years of exacting labor have failed to submerge Whitey into the drudgery of tedious detail. He dreams of the day to be when he will be able to carry out his ideas — ideas that will prove exceedingly beneficial to all those to whom they may be applied. He meets every situation with a determination and whole-heartedness that sees it successfully through to the end, realizing that to completely enjoy one's life, one must live it. Meeting each reverse with more than enough energy to turn it to victory, Whitey will soon be pushing himself to his rightful position of prominence at the top of the heap.

Football N, 4, 3, 2, 1; Lacrosse N.A., 3; Crew 40, 4; 2 Stripes.

ULMONT IRVING WHITEHEAD, JR.

Hartford, Connecticut

Monty

Years of exacting labor have failed to submerge Whitey into the drudgery of tedious detail. He dreams of the day to be when he will be able to carry out his ideas — ideas that will prove exceedingly beneficial to all those to whom they may be applied. He meets every situation with a determination and whole-heartedness that sees it successfully through to the end, realizing that to completely enjoy one's life, one must live it. Meeting each reverse with more than enough energy to turn it to victory, Whitey will soon be pushing himself to his rightful position of prominence at the top of the heap.

Football N, 4, 3, 2, 1; Lacrosse N.A., 3; Crew 40, 4; 2 Stripes.

Loss

Whitey was lost in USS Arizona (BB 39) during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Ulmont graduated in 1933 from Bulkeley High School in Connecticut. He played end and back on the football team. He joined the navy and trained at Newport, Rhode Island. Assigned to the USS Mississippi, he was sent to Havana in October 1933 during the uprising. In September 1934, he took examinations to enter the preparatory school at Norfolk and studied there until April 1935.
Father George, mother Etta and two sisters. His grandfather and father owned G. I. Whitehead & Son, Inc., the oldest garage in Hartford, Connecticut.

The 1942 edition of his high school yearbook featured his midshipman portrait and a dedication on the following page:

To the Memory\
of\
ULMONT I. WHITEHEAD
Lovable Companion, Loyal Student, Valiant Warrior\
First Bulkeley Graduate\
To Make the Supreme Sacrifice\
In World War Il\
Giving His Life for His Country\
In the Battle of Pearl Harbor\
December 7, 1941\
This Book is Reverently Dedicated

His father was listed as next of kin.

Ulmont is remembered at the USS Arizona Memorial as well Courts of the Missing in Hawaii.

Photographs

From Hartford Courant on June 3, 1935
The 1942 Bulkeley High School yearbook
From the Lucky Bag

Remembrance

From Durham (Connecticut) Patch on December 7, 2011:

If you've ever gotten off of I-91 at the Capitol Area exit, you've traveled on a connector two-thirds-of-a-mile long from 91 to Pulaski Circle. During the last part of that journey, you pass through a tunnel beneath the Hartford Public Library below Main Street.
Most people are unaware of two things during that brief journey: 1. That connector really covers the Park River — that's why the tunnel is there; and 2. That stretch of road is named after Hartford native and U.S. Naval Academy football star Ulmont Irving Whitehead — the first Hartford resident to die during World War II.
"Monty" Whitehead was a member of the Naval Academy's Class of 1940. Prior to attending the academy, Whitehead had graduated from Hartford's Bulkeley High in the Class of 1933; additionally, he had spent three years in the Navy before obtaining an appointment to Annapolis. His father, Ulmont "Ully" Whitehead Sr., operated a repair garage on New Britain Avenue. The Whiteheads were well-liked by their neighbors. One neighbor related the following story:
In 1944, when a hurricane blew down a willow in our back yard, Ully Whitehead backed his big tow truck between the houses, attached a length of cable to the tree, threw the winch motor into gear and pulled the huge tree upright. It lived for another 30 years.
Monty Whitehead was a star football player for three years at Annapolis. A three-year letterman, Whitehead led Navy in receiving in 1938 and kicked the winning field goal in Navy's 13-7 victory over Army in 1939 before a crowd of more than 100,000. He also played a key role in Navy's victory over Notre Dame on Oct. 21, 1939, before a crowd exceeding 80,000, as this excerpt from the Spartanburg Herald-Journal on Sunday Oct. 22, 1939, clearly demonstrates:
The midshipmen, checkmated on the ground, took to the air with a desperate passing attack in the final period and clicked for a 64 yard touchdown on an aerial from red-haired Bob Leonard, substitute halfback, to Ulmont Whitehead. Whitehead took the 34 yd heave on the Irish 30, outraced 2 Notre Damers to the goal line, and then kicked the extra point.
After graduation, Whitehead eventually was assigned to BB 39 — the battleship USS Arizona. Monty Whitehead was one of seven members of the Class of 1940 to be assigned to the ill-fated Arizona. One can only speculate where he was on the ship when a Japanese bomb found the forward munitions magazine. The force of the explosion was so enormous that the mighty ship was partially lifted out of the waters of Pearl Harbor.
The attack on Pearl Harbor began just before 8 a.m. Two waves of Japanese planes consisting of 353 aircraft launched from six aircraft carriers carried out the raid. The attackers sank or heavily damaged 16 ships, including 8 battleships; also, 188 aircraft were destroyed. Overall, 2,402 Americans were killed and more than 1,200 were wounded. The Japanese lost only 29 aircraft and 5 midget submarines for a casualty total of 65 killed or wounded.
Ulmont I. Whitehead was one of 17 Connecticut men killed at Pearl Harbor that morning. He was Hartford's first casualty of the war and one of 1,177 men on the Arizona to die that fateful morning — almost half of the fatalities incurred that day. His remains are entombed on the ship along with 6 other members of the Naval Academy’s Class of 1940.
Three other members of the Class of ’40 died that morning on the USS Oklahoma. In total, 76 members of the Naval Academy’s Class of 1940 were to lose their lives in World War II — one of the largest casualty totals in the school’s history. Philip R. Devlin

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.