Walter M. Enger – Rear Admiral, United States Navy

From a contemporary press report:
Sunday, July 13, 2003

Walter M. Enger, 89, a Rear Admiral who retired in Washington in 1973 as commander of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command, died of leukemia June 28 in the health care unit of the Virginian retirement community in Fairfax, Virginia.

Admiral Enger was chief of the Navy’s civil engineers and commander of the Seabees, the Navy’s construction force. He had also been deputy chief of the engineering command, director of the Chesapeake division of the Bureau of Yards and Docks and assistant chief of that bureau for military readiness.

He was a native of Urbana, Illinois, and a graduate of the University of Illinois. He was an engineer with the Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation prior to World War II. He served during the war as a Seabee battalion commander in the Pacific. He also taught engineering at the U.S. Naval Academy and was assigned to the office of the chief of naval personnel.

After he retired, Admiral Enger was a vice president of De Leuw, Cather & Co., an engineering firm.

Among his honors were the Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Navy Commendation Medal and Gold Medal Award of the Society of American Military Engineers.

He was president and fellow of the Society of American Military Engineers, a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, chairman of the Commission on Engineering Information and a member of the American Public Works Association, National Society of Professional Engineers, Association for Cooperation in Engineering and the Moles.

His wife of 65 years, Charlotte Hope Enger, died in 2001.

Survivors include two children, Thomas Arthur Enger of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and Susan Enger Myers of Delran, N.J.; and two grandsons.

ENGER, WALTER M., RADM, USN (Ret.) (Age 89)

Of Fairfax, Virginia, on Saturday, June 28, 2003 at the Virginian. Beloved husband of the late Charlotte Hope Enger; father of Susan Enger Myers and Thomas Arthur Enger and grandfather of Rex and Tyler Myers. Graveside services will be held at Arlington National Cemetery Columbarium on Monday, August 25, at 1 p.m. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Seabee Memorial Scholarship Association, P.O. Box 6574, Silver Spring, MD 20916.

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