Ships
- USS Intrepid (CV-11) Captain from 4 November 1946 · Relieved on 22 March 1947
Arthur Arlo Giesser was born on 16 April 1912. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1935, qualified as a naval aviator, and served in the Second World War and the Korean War. He reached the rank of commander. From 4 November 1946 to 22 March 1947 he was commanding officer of the aircraft carrier Intrepid (CV-11).
While in flight training at Pensacola, Florida, he met Thelma Louise Quina, who had grown up there and was known in town as Miss Pensacola. They married on 4 June 1938. The couple raised eight children and moved with his Navy assignments. For long periods the family lived in Coronado, California.
Intrepid, an Essex-class carrier, had entered commission in August 1943 under Thomas Lamison Sprague. In the Pacific her commanding officers included Richard Kenna Gaines, William Dodge Sample, Joseph Francis Bolger, Giles Elza Short, and Robert Edwin Blick, Jr. The ship fought with the fast carrier force, survived heavy damage, and finished the war as a veteran. Henry Gabriel Sanchez commanded her from 11 April 1946 until Giesser relieved him.
Giesser assumed command on 4 November 1946, with the wartime fleet already being reduced. Intrepid spent his tour in the closing months of her first commission. He was relieved on 22 March 1947, the day the carrier left active service. She remained in reserve until the Navy returned her to commission in 1952.
In the late 1950s he was still carried as Commander Arthur Giesser when he advised the television series Navy Log and served as an uncredited technical adviser on the 1959 motion picture Battle of the Coral Sea. He died on 19 January 1965 and was buried at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego. Thelma, who lived on in San Diego, was buried in the same grave in 2010.