Ships
- USS Fanshaw Bay (CVE-70) Commander in command from 29 January 1946 · Relieved on 14 August 1946
Harold Sydney Bottomley Jr. was born in Merchantville, New Jersey, on 13 October 1915, the son of Harold S. and Eleanor (Stockham) Bottomley. He graduated cum laude from Culver Military Academy and entered the Naval Academy from Pennsylvania in 1933. He was commissioned on 3 June 1937, served in the cruiser Concord, and earned his wings on 15 October 1940.
In December 1940 he joined Bombing Squadron Three, and he flew with it from Saratoga, Yorktown and Enterprise through the decisive battles of 1942. At Midway, on 4–6 June 1942, he flew in Max Leslie's VB-3 Dauntless squadron and won the Navy Cross. He earned two Distinguished Flying Crosses in the Solomons in August 1942 and rose to command the squadron. Back home he ran the Carrier Suitability Unit at Philadelphia, testing arrested landings and catapult launches. In 1944 he won the Air Medal for crash-landing a burning plane to save a crewman who could not bail out.
In October 1945 he became executive officer of the escort carrier Fanshaw Bay, and five months later he took command to decommission her. He served on the staff of Naval Forces Europe in London, attended the Royal Navy Staff College, and worked as an air liaison with the Royal Navy and RAF. He commanded Fighter Squadron 131 and Carrier Air Group Six in Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Mediterranean (1950–51), and he was executive officer of Wasp (1953–54). After the Naval and National War Colleges he was naval aide to an Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He then commanded the ammunition ship Rainier and, from February 1960, the carrier Bon Homme Richard. He headed the Strategic Nuclear Branch of the Joint Chiefs' Special Studies Group (1963–65), winning the Legion of Merit, and in 1966 took command of the Naval Support Activity in Naples, Italy.
He married Dorothy Jane Filbert of Reading, Pennsylvania, and they had two daughters and two sons. No reliable source found for his retirement or death.