Captain Gilbert C. Hoover
The following information copied from a clipping, dated Jan. 10, 1980
Adm. Hoover, former Council Pres.
veteran of World Wars, dies at 85
Gilbert Corwin Hoover, veteran of several major naval battles in the Pacific Ocean in World War II, and one of the first men in the U. S. government to become involved in the development of the atomic bomb, died Jan 8 at the Hattie Ide Chaffee Home in East Providence. He was 85.
Retired from the U. S. Navy as a rear admiral after 35 years service, he had lived in Bristol for the past 30 years.
He is survived by his wife, Mabel (Dumbell) Hoover; a son, Gilbert, Jr. of New York City; two daughters, Katherine H Miller, of Glastonbury, Conn; and Ann H. Wood, of Westfield, NJ; and seven grandchildren.
Born in Columbus, Ohio on July 25, 1894, he was the son of the late Fred Maynard and Eliza (Kinnear) Hoover. Following graduation from high school he entered the U. S. Naval Academy where he graduated with the Class of 1916.
During World War I he served aboard the battleship U. S. Wyoming in the North Sea. He was present at the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet.
Between the wars he received a degree in metallurgy from Carnegie Institute. He served on several ships on the East and West coasts. In 1929 he was appointed naval aide to President Herbert Hoover.
In 1939 he was appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the first group in the U.S. government to deal with the theory of nuclear fission. Out of the committee's findings came the massive, top-secret effort in World War II which produced the atomic bomb.
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor he was on destroyer duty in the North Atlantic. He was soon transferred to the Pacific where he was a destroyer division commander. In early 1942 his ships took part in the Battle of Coral Sea. Soon afterward they were involved in the decisive Battle of Midway
He was commanding officer of the cruiser U. S. S. Helena in the battles of Cape Esperance and Guadalcanal.
During his career he was awarded the Naval Cross three times. He retired from the Navy in 1947 and became active in civic affairs in Bristol, serving as president of the Town Council.
In 1951 Admiral Hoover returned to government service as a civilian official at the Atomic Energy Commission's Sandia Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Following this he became manager of the AEC's facility in Boulder, Colorado. He returned to Bristol in 1956.
His last official act in uniform was to serve as representative of the Secretary of the Navy at the keel laying of the U. S. S. Bristol County in San Diego, Calif in February, 1971.
He was a communicant of St Michael's Episcopal Church in Bristol, where he served as vestryman and warden.
He was a member of the American Society of Metals, Army-Navy Legion of Valor, National Sojourners, Sons of the American Revolution, and was a Mason. He is a former member of the Chevy Chase Club, the Hope Club and the Bristol Yacht Club.
The funeral service will be at 12 noon Friay at St Michaels's Church