Ships
- USS Louisville (CA-28) Captain from 29 October 1938 · Relieved on 12 December 1940
Frank Thompson Leighton was born in Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, on 2 September 1885. He was appointed to the United States Naval Academy in 1905 and began active service in June 1909. His career ran from the years before the First World War through the middle of the Second.
Between the wars he commanded the destroyers Somers (DD-301) and Claxton (DD-140). He also served in Roe (DD-418) and at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. On 3 June 1937 he was promoted to captain.
On 29 October 1938 he took command of the heavy cruiser Louisville (CA-28). She was a Northampton-class ship, built at the Puget Sound Navy Yard and commissioned in January 1931 under Edward J. Marquart, with a main battery of nine 8-inch guns. Leighton kept her with the Pacific Fleet. In 1940 he and the cruiser were based at Long Beach, California. He was relieved on 12 December 1940.
He left Louisville while the United States was still at peace. The cruiser's hard service in the Pacific came under later captains, among them Elliott Bodley Nixon and Charles Turner Joy. In January 1944 she went back to the South Pacific as flagship for Jesse Barrett Oldendorf and, at the end of that month, bombarded Wotje in the Marshalls.
Leighton went on to the Eighth Naval District in New Orleans, where he served as chief of staff and as commandant of the district. He was advanced to rear admiral. He died on 23 November 1943, still on active duty, at the naval hospital in Newport, Rhode Island. He was 58.
He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He and his wife, Elizabeth Roby Ohler, had five children. His medals included the World War I Victory Medal and the American Campaign Medal.