WILLIAM F. CALLAWAY, LCDR, USN
William Callaway '11
Lucky Bag
From the 1911 Lucky Bag:
William Franklin Callaway
Clinton, Missouri
"Deadwood Dick" "Devil" "Dick"
DICK is one of the quiet men of the class, who steadily makes good without much furor. One of the Acey-Deucey sharps of Cruise days, and a member of the notorious Second Deck Ironclads. He rhinoes on occasions, but merely for the fun of it, which few of us can say. He has a fetching grin of his own design, and makes good but quiet company. He is modest and rather too diffident for either a savoir or a fusser, though he has attempted the latter several times during his career. He loves a rough-house, as a good many quiet men do, and when "Bright Eyes" and "Alf" join him there is usually something happening. He roomed with Hyman for the first two years, until that little hazing incident occurred. Doesn't know what it is not to be worried over his eyes, and has a chronic dread of physical exams.
William Franklin Callaway was born in Clinton, Missouri, November 7, 1889. Before entering the Naval Academy he spent nearly three years at the Clinton High School.
William Franklin Callaway
Clinton, Missouri
"Deadwood Dick" "Devil" "Dick"
DICK is one of the quiet men of the class, who steadily makes good without much furor. One of the Acey-Deucey sharps of Cruise days, and a member of the notorious Second Deck Ironclads. He rhinoes on occasions, but merely for the fun of it, which few of us can say. He has a fetching grin of his own design, and makes good but quiet company. He is modest and rather too diffident for either a savoir or a fusser, though he has attempted the latter several times during his career. He loves a rough-house, as a good many quiet men do, and when "Bright Eyes" and "Alf" join him there is usually something happening. He roomed with Hyman for the first two years, until that little hazing incident occurred. Doesn't know what it is not to be worried over his eyes, and has a chronic dread of physical exams.
William Franklin Callaway was born in Clinton, Missouri, November 7, 1889. Before entering the Naval Academy he spent nearly three years at the Clinton High School.
Loss
William was lost on December 17, 1927 when USS S-4 (SS 109) sank immediately following a collision with USCG Paulding (CG 17) near Cape Code, Massachusetts. He was aboard as an observer of the Bureau of Construction and Repair.
Other Information
From researcher Kathy Franz:
In the 1900 census, William was 10 years old, his father Jerry was the Sheriff, his mother was Mollie, and his brothers were Cleveland and James. Right after their names in the census came the names of 12 prisoners including one woman. Their address was right across from the City Hall just off the main courthouse square in Clinton, Missouri. William married Dorothy Jane Brown on September 9, 1916, in Manhattan, and in 1920, they lived in Honolulu.
William had visited his father shortly before the disaster which took his life. From the Henry County Democrat, Dec. 29, 1927, his father said, “When Jack was home on his furlough in September, we talked much of the perilous service he was in and he made it clear that he did not fear death. ‘I am likely to go at any moment,’ he said to me, ‘but when my time shall come, whether it be on land or in the sea, I shall be ready, for I regard death as supreme moment of a man’s life.”
In the House of Representatives, Congressman C. C. Dickinson spoke about William. “Mr. Speaker and gentlemen of the House may well halt public business for a moment to express a word of sympathy in the submarine disaster which has recently occurred off the coast of Massachusetts, when forty-odd splendid men went down, when the submarine S-4 was struck by a Coast Guard vessel, which sent it to the bottom of the sea.
Our sympathy goes out to each and every one of them, and my excuse for rising this morning is to refer particularly to one man, Lieut. Commander William Franklin Callaway, a man of high character and of great service – an inspection officer who had gone there to inspect this vessel and was confined there with the other officers in the room where the officers are located, and which, perhaps, was flooded. While six men in the torpedo room are now said to be alive, the probabilities are that the officers are not alive.
Lieut. Commander William Franklin Callaway came from my home town. His family were my next door neighbors. I know intimately all his relatives. He was appointed to Annapolis 20 years ago by my distinguished predecessor, David De Armond, and after graduation served continuously in the naval service, 10 years in the submarine service. His record is notable.”
Congressman Dickinson had recently appointed William’s younger step-brother Peyton Parks Callaway (Class of 1931) to the Naval Academy.
He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery and has a a memory marker in Missouri.
Photographs
William (on left) while in command of submarine USS G-4, 1917.
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.
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October 1927
Related Articles
Roy Jones '16, Joseph McGinley '21, Graham Fitch '23, and Donald Weller '23 were also lost when S-4 sank.
Memorial Hall Error
William's headstone has his rank as LCDR; Memorial Hall has CDR. Unable to find evidence of a posthumous promotion. He is listed in the Register of Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps of 1927 — and the 1928 edition, which also has his death date — as a LCDR.
The "category" links below lead to lists of related Honorees; use them to explore further the service and sacrifice of alumni in Memorial Hall.
