WADE C. SHAFFER, JR., LT, USN

Wade Shaffer, Jr. '38

Date of birth: May 4, 1915

Date of death: April 3, 1943

Age: 27

Lucky Bag

From the 1938 Lucky Bag:

WADE CALVERT SHAFFER, JR.

Humboldt, Kansas

Jeff

If you are in need of a pipeful of tobacco, stamps, or a loan, just ask Jeff but don't ask him to believe that modern languages are based on the sun, the sea, the snake, and the consonant groups. The Academic Department has never haunted our hero as his idea of the way to draw an easy slip is to know all the answers, and he usually does. He fought for his battalion Plebe summer, but the prospect of eating on a training table proved so distasteful that Jeff hung up his gloves and bought a typewriter. However, he has yet to win a decision over this gadget, as the touch system has him baffled. Jeff's a friend and we wish him well.

Boxing 4, 3, 2; Wrestling 1; Lieutenant (j.g.).

WADE CALVERT SHAFFER, JR.

Humboldt, Kansas

Jeff

If you are in need of a pipeful of tobacco, stamps, or a loan, just ask Jeff but don't ask him to believe that modern languages are based on the sun, the sea, the snake, and the consonant groups. The Academic Department has never haunted our hero as his idea of the way to draw an easy slip is to know all the answers, and he usually does. He fought for his battalion Plebe summer, but the prospect of eating on a training table proved so distasteful that Jeff hung up his gloves and bought a typewriter. However, he has yet to win a decision over this gadget, as the touch system has him baffled. Jeff's a friend and we wish him well.

Boxing 4, 3, 2; Wrestling 1; Lieutenant (j.g.).

Loss

Wade was lost when USS Pickerel (SS 177) was sunk by Japanese vessels north of Honshū on April 3, 1943.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Wade graduated from Humboldt high school in 1932 and then attended two years at Iola Junior College. He was appointed to the Naval Academy by Senator Arthur Capper.
In October 1941, Wade was one of 60 U.S. navy and naval reserve officers who comprised a new class in submarine training at New London, Connecticut.
In 1930, his father was a master mechanic at a cement mill.

He is listed on a small group memory marker in Kansas, on a separate memory marker in Kansas, and is listed at the Courts of the Missing in Hawaii.

Wade's wife was listed as next of kin.

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.