Ships
- USS Farragut (DD-348) Captain, 5 June 1938 – 25 June 1939
The Navy's own books carry one line officer of that name and no middle name at all: Lewis Corman, Naval Academy class of 1920, file number 055985 in the postwar registers, born 6 July 1897, pay-entry base date 7 June 1919, a captain on the retired list from 1 January 1947. He is not Harry Corman, a separate officer in every register from 1921 on, with his own signal numbers and, later, file number 020281. He is not Otis W. S. Corman of the Marine Corps, and not the Frank, Frederick, John, Lee, or Edith Cormans who appear in the same indexes. Nothing read for this essay prints a middle initial for Lewis.
What the paper will support is a Pennsylvanian who nearly failed the doctors at Annapolis, learned electrical engineering as a postgraduate, spent the 1930s as an engineer and then as a destroyer captain, and spent the war that followed in a supervisor of shipbuilding's office on the Maine coast. The ships he is actually tied to are named below with the date of the book that places him there. There is no cruise narrative for 1943–1946, because no station for those years was found.
Origins
He was born on 6 July 1897. That is the date-of-birth column on the retired list of the Register of Commissioned and Warrant Officers of 1 July 1947, beside the name the optical-character text renders as "CORMAN LENIS," rank captain, and it is the same day and year in the 1 July 1945 register (6 July 97) next to a clean "Lewis Corman." The 1945 book also gives a date of entry, 29 June 1916, which is the day his class entered the Naval Academy, not the day he was commissioned. The 1947 retired list adds the pay-entry base date, 7 June 1919. No register read here gives a birthplace, a county, or a father's name.
The home the Academy recorded is Greensburg, Pennsylvania. The 1920 Lucky Bag, page 64, heads his sketch "Lewis Corman / Greensburg, Pa." and the nicknames "Loo" and "Fish," and the classmates who wrote it call him a Pennsylvanian. That is a hometown at the Academy, not a birth certificate. Greensburg is not used here as the place he was born.
No parent, brother, or sister is named in the registers, the directories, or the yearbook. The yearbook does not mention a family beyond "the box" from home. A wife appears once, and only as "Mrs. Lewis Corman." The Courier-Gazette of Rockland, Maine, for Friday, 11 September 1942, reporting the launch set for the next day, says the sponsor who would break the bottle on the salvage vessel Extricate "will be Mrs. Lewis Corman, wife of Commander Lewis Corman of the Navy supervisor's office at Bath." Her given name is not in that article, and it has not turned up anywhere else read for this essay. No child is named. The absence is a blank in the sources, not a finding that he had no children.
Formation
He entered the Naval Academy on 29 June 1916 with the class the Lucky Bag crest on his page calls the class of 1920. The war shortened the course. The pay-entry base date of 7 June 1919 is the commissioning day the Navy later used for him, and the 1 July 1940 register's own footnote for that pattern of officers reads "Commissioned ensign June 7, 1919." He was an ensign in the Register of 1921, signal number 4599, indexed as "Corman, Lewis, Ens." The body of that register, in the optical-character text, drops his name off the signal line, so his ship in 1921 is not taken from it. The first five years after commissioning, 1919 into the spring of 1924, are a gap. No directory or register page read here puts him on a named ship in those years.
The class book is the only picture of him young, and it is classmate prose, written to be funny. It should be read as that. The sketch says they were glad not to have lost "this husky Pennsylvanian when the medics were on his ear," because he had talents, "one of which was proved by the girls' remark, 'Why dance when there is loving to be done?'" The ear is as specific as the medical story gets. There is no diagnosis, no board, and no date. What the sentence does say is that a doctor nearly kept him out, and that his classmates remembered it as a near thing.
The rest of the sketch is academic and temperamental, in the slang of the yard. He "has never had the struggle for a 2.5 that many of the rest of us have had, but is always modest about his marks, in fact so modest that he thinks he is bilged every month until the trees go up." They could not get "Fish's" goat. Reciting "The Pennsylvania Volunteers" did not bother him anymore. "His scale of disposition is unlike most 'fish' scale — it can't be scraped off, and he's never rhino, even if the box failed to arrive from home or rain ruined the inter-company ball game." The last line is the one they wanted remembered: "He'll shed sunshine wherever he goes so stow the awnings when you see him coming alongside." Under Honors the only entry is "Buzzard." In that same book the word sits where other men are given "One Stripe," "Three Stripes," or "Clean Sleeve." It is a midshipman rank mark, not a medal. He is not listed on a team.
There is no car in the sketch, and no diagnosis. "On his ear" is as far as the medical story goes. The talents the paragraph actually names are the ones the girls noticed, and the temper that would not scrape off. That is yearbook joking. It is not a character reference the Navy signed.
The first dated duty after the gap is school. The Register of 1925 lists him a lieutenant (junior grade) from 23 June 1924, reported in May 1924, station "Naval Academy (instruction)," signal 2999, between Frederick Vinton Barker and Hugh Elliott Haven, the same Haven who sits next to him for the next twenty years. The Annual Register of the United States Naval Academy for 1 October 1924, eightieth academic year 1924–1925, lists "Lieut. (J. G.) Lewis Corman" among the student officers of the Postgraduate School. By the Navy Directory of 1 October 1925 the station had changed and the rank had changed. He is "Corman, Lewis, lt, Columbia University, New York, N. Y. (instrn)." The Register of 1 January 1933 still carries his lieutenant's date of rank as a ditto of a block that begins "7 June 25." Lieutenant from 7 June 1925, a year after the junior-grade date, is what that book supports. He had gone from Annapolis instruction to Columbia inside 1925, and the Navy's later code for him says what the schooling was for.
In the Register of 1 January 1930 his special-course number is 23. The explanatory notes of the Register of 1 January 1934, and again of 1 July 1940, define 23 as "Completed postgraduate course in electrical engineering." The notes define 18 as "Completed Naval War College correspondence course in strategy and tactics." On 1 January 1933 he is still marked only 23. On 1 January 1934 the mark is "18 23." The correspondence course was finished between those two New Year registers. He was never redesignated for engineering duty only. The number 4, which would have meant that, is not beside his name. He remained a line officer who had done the electrical course, and the jobs that followed look like it.
On 1 January 1933 and again on 1 January 1934 the station column puts Lieutenant Lewis Corman on Utah. The 1934 line, signal 2061, reads courses "18 23," date of rank a ditto of the 7 June 1925 block, duty Utah, with Haven on Yarnall next. What he did on Utah — deck, turret, engine room — is not said. The ship's own story in those years is not his story, and it is not told here.
He was a lieutenant commander from 1 January 1935. The Register of 1 July 1936, in the lieutenant commanders, gives signal 1581 the date of rank "1 Jan. 35," signal 1582 the courses "18 23" and the date "do," and signal 1583 to Hugh Elliott Haven with a new date, 27 January 1935. The index of that register is "1582 Corman, Lewis, Lt. Comdr." The optical-character text drops the name off the 1582 line, but the index and the man on either side are enough. The Navy Directory of 1 January 1936 already has him "LT COMDR" at "NORFOLK NAVY YARD PORTSMOUTH VA." The same directory's shore roster, under the Norfolk yard, lists "LT COMDR L. CORMAN" with a signal the scan reads as 1589, in the run of names under the industrial department after the heading "PRODUCTION DIVISION." The signal digit may be a misread 1582. The yard is not in doubt. The shop is likely and not sworn.
By 1 January 1937 he was at sea again as an engineer. The Navy Directory of that day lists "Corman, Lewis, lt comdr, u s s Northampton, eng," and the ship's roster names "Lt. Comdr. L. Corman, eng" under "Capt. A. S. Carpender, comdg." The Directory of 1 January 1938 says the same: lieutenant commander, Northampton, engineer, Carpender still in command. Two New Year directories, so at least a year in the engineering department of a heavy cruiser, not in command of her. Northampton's later war is not his.
Then the one command the directories record. The Navy Directory of 1 January 1939 lists "Corman, Lewis, lt comdr, comdg u s s Farragut," and the ship's page of the same book has "Lt. Comdr. L. Corman, comdg." He was captain of the destroyer Farragut on that day, still a lieutenant commander. A compiled list of her commanding officers, the one printed by NavSource, gives him 5 June 1938 to 25 June 1939 and calls him Naval Academy 1920. Those days are not in a register, a directory, or a newspaper read here, and they are not used. What the books do fix is a window. He was engineer of Northampton on 1 January 1938. He was in command of Farragut on 1 January 1939. He was gone from her by 1 June 1940. How he handled her, where she went while he had her, and whom he relieved, are not in the sources used here. Inventing a shakedown or a fleet problem would be a cruise he has not earned on paper.
War years as lived
The war he can be shown to have lived was not on a bridge.
On 1 June 1940 the Navy Directory places "Corman, Lewis, lt comdr" in the "office inspr naval matl, Hartford dist, Hartford, Conn." The rank in that directory is still lieutenant commander. On 21 June 1940 the Congressional Record prints the nomination of lieutenant commanders to be commanders, "Lewis Corman, September 23, 1939," in the same list as Walter H. Roberts and Charles B. McVay, 3d. The Register of 1 July 1940 already carries him as a commander from 23 September 1939, signal 1121, courses 18 and 23, in the block whose date of rank is "23 Sept 39." The Hartford directory of 1 June had not yet caught the rank the Senate was being asked to confirm, backdated nine months. By the Navy's July book he was a commander. The Hartford job is the last time a directory shows him as an inspector of material rather than a supervisor of building.
On 1 April 1941 the Directory — the last of the public series before it stopped — lists "Corman, Lewis, comdr, office asst supervisor shipbldg, Bath iron wks corp, Bath, Me." Orders in that issue run through the 23rd of the preceding month. He had moved from an inspector's office in Connecticut to the assistant supervisor of shipbuilding at Bath Iron Works, and the rank on the page is commander. The Register of 1 July 1942 still indexes him "Corman, Lewis, Comdr." Wartime registers dropped the station column, so the July 1942 book does not say he was still at Bath. The Rockland paper does.
The Courier-Gazette kept finding him at other people's launchings. On Thursday, 3 July 1941, Snow Shipyards in Rockland was to put the auxiliary minesweeper Tapacola in the water at six o'clock, and "among those who will comprise the launching party" the paper named "Commander Joseph M. Kiernan, Commander Lewis Corman," and a string of lieutenants from the supervisor's office and the reserve. On Saturday, 20 September 1941, Snow launched the minesweeper Summit at 10 a.m., and the launching party "from the Supervisor's office in Bath" included "Commander and Mrs. J. M. Kiernan, Commander Lewis Corman, Lieut. Broderick, Ensign Burke and Inspector Hanson." He is a guest from Bath, not the speaker, and not the sponsor. The work the paper describes around him is the small end of the Navy's building program: wooden minesweepers about 100 feet long, diesel powered, turned out of a yard that had once built sailing ships. The paper's pride is the yard's. It does not quote him.
A year later the boat was larger and the sponsor was his wife. The Courier-Gazette of Friday, 11 September 1942, under the heading of a big launch at Snow's, says that at half past noon the next day the yard would launch "the largest wooden vessel to have been built in a Maine yard in several generations," the salvage and rescue vessel Extricate, first of a pair contracted for the Navy. The article, written the day before, says the sponsor "who will break the bottle and christen the boat will be Mrs. Lewis Corman, wife of Commander Lewis Corman of the Navy supervisor's office at Bath," and that the expected guests included "Capt. Ralph S. McDowell, the present Navy supervisor for this district," with his staff. McDowell is the supervisor. Corman is the assistant, still titled commander in the paper fourteen months after the April 1941 directory. This essay does not turn the day-before announcement into a witnessed christening. A later history that says she did sponsor the ship, and that the ship was launched on 12 September, has not been traced here to the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships or to a report of the launch itself. Extricate's later salvage work is not his cruise. He is not shown in command of her, or of any other ship, after Farragut.
On Thursday, 24 September 1942, he was on a platform again. The Courier-Gazette of Friday, 25 September, describing an Army-Navy "E" ceremony at a Rockland yard the day before, lists among those present "Commander Lewis Corman, U.S.N. assistant supervisor of ship building," with officers of the Rockland Naval Section Base and of the supervisor's office at Bath. A telegram from Margaret Chase Smith and wires from James V. Forrestal and Governor Sumner Sewall are in the story. Corman is a dignitary in the list, not a speaker whose words were taken down. A photograph caption in the issue of Tuesday, 29 September, names "Comdr. Lewis Corman" among the participants, again without a sentence of his. That is the last contemporary sight of him found: a commander in a Maine shipyard office, standing at other men's launchings and at a production award, while the ships went to crews he did not join.
The captain's rank is a register fact that sits awkwardly against those months. The retired list of 1 July 1947 gives his rank as captain, the date-of-rank field as 21 June 1942, retirement 1 January 1947, birth 6 July 1897, pay-entry base date 7 June 1919. The Register of 1 July 1944 indexes him "Corman, Lewis, Capt." The Register of 1 July 1942 still calls him a commander, and the Rockland papers of September 1942 still call him commander. A captain's date of rank of 21 June 1942 can be what the Navy later settled on, backdated, without his having been addressed as captain in Bath that summer. Both records are printed here. Neither is edited to match the other. From July 1944 at the latest, the Navy's own book calls him captain. Where he was captain — still at Bath, somewhere else in the building program, or already on the way to retirement — no directory, order, or newspaper in the sources read for this essay says. The public Navy Directory had stopped. Wartime registers omit stations. The gap runs from the Rockland ceremony of 24 September 1942 to the retired list of 1 January 1947.
There is no decoration beside his name in the registers examined, no mention in a citation, no action report, and no letter. The war, as the paper has it, is the inspector's office, then the assistant supervisor's office, and the wooden ships leaving Rockland while he watched from the supervisor's party.
After
He retired on 1 January 1947. The Register of 1 July 1947 places him on the retired list of captains. The column the book heads, through a badly scanned caption, as the law governing retirement is rendered "GY" for him, as it is for several classmates next to him, including Robert David Threshie. This essay does not translate "GY" into a statute. The same page gives permanent status as captain, the date of rank 21 June 1942, the date retired 1 January 1947. The index of that register and of the registers of 1950 and 1958 still lists him "CAPT RET," file number 055985. Harry Corman is on those same index pages as a retired commander, file 020281. They were retired apart, at different ranks, and the Navy never confused the file numbers.
No retired-list home address was recovered cleanly from those volumes. No obituary, no death date, and no cemetery record that can be tied to this officer, as opposed to other men named Lewis Corman, was found. The 1958 register still carries him as a retired captain. That is as far as the officer list goes. What he did with the years after 1 January 1947 — whether he stayed in Maine, went back to Pennsylvania, or lived long enough to see the ships he had helped get into the water scrapped — is not in the record used here.
The life that is on paper is narrower than a wartime captain's is usually allowed to be, and it is not improved by borrowing Farragut's later Pacific war or Utah's morning at Pearl Harbor. He commanded Farragut before the war, as a lieutenant commander, on a date the directory fixes only as 1 January 1939 inside a window of about two years. He spent the war that came after in the offices that built and inspected ships, at Hartford and then at Bath, and the only personal stake the newspapers record is that his wife was named to christen a salvage ship. Classmates in 1920 had thought the hard thing to get past was a doctor's interest in his ear, and that once past it he would not stay angry when the rain spoiled a ball game. The Navy's later record does not say whether that temper held. It says he finished an engineering course, served as engineer officer of a cruiser, had one destroyer, and then stood on the dock.