Ships
- USS Indiana (BB-58) Captain from 1 May 1945 · Relieved on 5 December 1945
Francis Paxton Old was born in Norfolk, Virginia, on 19 December 1897, the son of Jonathan W. Old and Claudia Paxton Old. He prepared at the Severn School in Severn Park, Maryland, before entering the United States Naval Academy. During the First World War he spent the summers of 1917 and 1918 as a midshipman in the Atlantic Fleet, serving on the battleships Nebraska and Arizona. He was commissioned an ensign in June 1919 with the Class of 1920.
He advanced through the peacetime Navy and was a commander by the autumn of 1939. Early in the Second World War he served on the North Atlantic patrol. He then joined the Mediterranean amphibious forces, taking part in the assaults on Sicily and Salerno in 1943. In January 1944 he served on the staff of the naval commander whose ships seized a beachhead at Anzio and Nettuno. From 13 August to 27 September 1944 he was chief of staff of the Western Naval Task Force during the invasion of southern France. The Legion of Merit, with the combat “V,” recognized his work off Italy, and the Army Distinguished Service Medal recognized his service as chief of staff in southern France.
On 1 May 1945 he relieved Thomas Joseph Keliher Jr. and became the sixth commanding officer of the battleship Indiana (BB-58). The ship was already in the western Pacific for the fighting around Okinawa. In early June she passed through a typhoon in those waters. In the closing weeks of the war her 16-inch guns bombarded targets in Japan, and a salvo fired from Indiana on 9 August 1945 was photographed among the last heavy-gun shoots of the Pacific war.
Japan had surrendered by the time Indiana entered Tokyo Bay on 5 September 1945. She sailed for home nine days later and reached San Francisco on 29 September. Old stayed in command through the autumn and was relieved on 5 December 1945.
After leaving the battleship he served on the General Board of the Navy and, in 1946 and 1947, commanded the Mine and Minesweeping Division of the Atlantic Fleet. He was promoted to rear admiral with date of rank 27 November 1946. In 1948 and 1949 he was naval adviser to the Republic of China, and from 1949 to 1951 he commanded United States naval forces in the Philippines. His last naval post was commandant of the Ninth Naval District. On 1 February 1954 he was transferred to the retired list and advanced to vice admiral on the strength of his combat awards.
In civilian life he served in 1954 and 1955 as executive director of the Illinois State Toll Highway Commission. He later was vice chairman of the board of the Sumner-Sollitt Company and of the Mid-American Appraisal Corporation. Francis Paxton Old died on 23 September 1963, at the age of 65, at the naval hospital at Great Lakes, Illinois.