Francis Marion Peters, Jr. – Captain, United States Navy

From a contemporary press report:

Francis Marion Peters Jr., 93, a retired Navy captain who lived in Falls Church, Virginia, before moving to a retirement community in Sykesville, Maryland, where he had lived since 1992, died of sepsis January 6, 2002, at Howard County Hospital.

Captain Peters, a native of Bluefield, West Virginia, was a 1931 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. Before World War II, he served aboard destroyers, aircraft carriers, cruisers and battleships and was a gunnery officer.

During the war, he served aboard destroyers in the Pacific. While in command of the destroyer USS Hopkins in the Solomon Islands, he received a Silver Star and the ship a Navy Unit Commendation. He ended the war at the Naval Gun Factory.

After the war, Captain Peters’s assignments included command of a destroyer squadron in the Atlantic and personnel posts ashore. He also graduated from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. He was assigned to the inspector general’s office of the Naval Sea Transport Service when he retired from active duty in 1961 and settled in Falls Church.

Survivors include his wife of 62 years, Virginia Page Peters of Sykesville; and a daughter, Virginia Arndt of Lusby, Maryland.

PETERS, FRANCIS MARION JR
CAPT   US NAVY

• VETERAN SERVICE DATES: 07/01/1940 – 07/01/1961
• DATE OF BIRTH: 01/22/1908
• DATE OF DEATH: 01/06/2002
• DATE OF INTERMENT: 04/15/2002
• BURIED AT: SECTION 5-N1  ROW 9  SITE 4

Michael Robert Patterson

Michael Robert Patterson was born in Arlington and is the son of a former officer of the US Army. So it was no wonder that sooner or later his interests drew him to American history and especially to American military history. Many of his articles can be found on renowned portals like the New York Times, Washingtonpost or Wikipedia.

Reviewed by: Michael Howard