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Contact Info
Home Town Hoopeston, IL
Last Address Chula Vista, CA
Date of Passing Apr 03, 1994
Location of Interment U.S. Naval Academy Cemetery and Columbarium (VLM) - Annapolis, Maryland
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
Thomas Hamilton, was an All-America halfback on Navy's undefeated football team in 1926. He went on to become a head football coach and athletic director at the academy.
Hamilton coached four seasons at Navy (1934-35 and 1947-48), compiling a 15-20-1 record. One of the losses -- to undefeated Army in 1946 -- led to one of sport's most quotable lines. After time expired as Hamilton's scrappy 1-8 Navy team was driving toward the goal line while trailing Army, 21-18, the coach justified his decision not to go for a game-tying field-goal by saying, "A tie is like kissing your sister."
During World War II, he and other coaches developed a 12-week physical training program for prospective Navy pilots. He participated in the invasions of the Philippines and the Gilbert and Marshall islands, Battle of Leyte Gulf, Battle of Iwo Jima, and other invasions and raids in the Pacific. His decorations include the Bronze Star and the Legion of Merit.
Hamilton, a rear admiral, retired from the Navy in 1948, and went to the University of Pittsburgh as its athletic director from 1949-59.
Under the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, he served on the Youth Fitness Programs. He was also chairman of the National Collegiate Athletic Association Committee on Physical Fitness, served for 16 years on the executive board of the United States Olympic Committee and was inducted into the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame in 1956. He died April 3, 1994 and was buried in the United States Naval Academy Cemetery at Annapolis, MD.
Other Comments:
US Navy Rear Admiral, College Football Coach. Hamilton graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1927. The Naval Academy football team won the 1926 national championship, with Hamilton as the quarterback being an integral part of the team. The only blemish on the 9-0-1 record was a tie with Army in which Hamilton drop kicked an extra point to tie the game with .30 seconds left. At the time it was considered the greatest game ever played. In 1929 he was designated a Naval Aviator after completing the training at Pensacola Naval Air Station. Hamilton became Navy's head coach in 1934 and remained until 1936 and then again became coach again in 1946 and 1947. The following year he became the Athletic Director for the Academy. In 1949 he left the Academy to become the athletic director at Pittsburgh for 1948 and 1949. He became the coach at Pittsburgh for the year 1951 and coached three games in 1954. Hamilton was the Commissioner of the Pac-8 Conference from 1959 to 1971 and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1965. During World War II Hamilton served on the Enterprise initially as the flight deck officer and later as the Executive Officer and in mid 1944 became the Commanding Officer. He served ashore much of the war in flight training capacities. In May of 1942 the Navy implemented the most effective and productive program ever devised for military aviation, known as "V-Five." The program was the idea of then Commander Hamilton. The goal was to produce combat pilots to wage war in the Atlantic and Pacific theaters. However, it's greatest effect was the most thorough and complete unarmed training the Department of the Navy had ever seen. Hamilton received the Theodore Roosevelt Award from the NCAA, the Stagg Award from the American Football Coaches Association, and the Gold Medal from the National Football Foundation, the Corbett Award from the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics.
World War II/Asiatic-Pacific Theater/Iwo Jima Operation
From Month/Year
February / 1945
To Month/Year
March / 1945
Description The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945), or Operation Detachment, was a major battle in which the United States Armed Forces fought for and captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese Empire. The American invasion had the goal of capturing the entire island, including its three airfields (including South Field and Central Field), to provide a staging area for attacks on the Japanese main islands. This five-week battle comprised some of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting of the War in the Pacific of World War II.
After the heavy losses incurred in the battle, the strategic value of the island became controversial. It was useless to the U.S. Army as a staging base and useless to the U.S. Navy as a fleet base. However, Navy SEABEES rebuilt the landing strips, which were used as emergency landing strips for USAAF B-29s.
The Imperial Japanese Army positions on the island were heavily fortified, with a dense network of bunkers, hidden artillery positions, and 18 km (11 mi) of underground tunnels. The Americans on the ground were supported by extensive naval artillery and complete air supremacy over Iwo Jima from the beginning of the battle by U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aviators.
Iwo Jima was the only battle by the U.S. Marine Corps in which the Japanese combat deaths were thrice those of the Americans throughout the battle. Of the 22,000 Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima at the beginning of the battle, only 216 were taken prisoner, some of whom were captured because they had been knocked unconscious or otherwise disabled. The majority of the remainder were killed in action, although it has been estimated that as many as 3,000 continued to resist within the various cave systems for many days afterwards, eventually succumbing to their injuries or surrendering weeks later.
Despite the bloody fighting and severe casualties on both sides, the Japanese defeat was assured from the start. Overwhelming American superiority in arms and numbers as well as complete control of air power — coupled with the impossibility of Japanese retreat or reinforcement — permitted no plausible circumstance in which the Americans could have lost the battle.
The battle was immortalized by Joe Rosenthal's photograph of the raising of the U.S. flag on top of the 166 m (545 ft) Mount Suribachi by five U.S. Marines and one U.S. Navy battlefield Hospital Corpsman. The photograph records the second flag-raising on the mountain, both of which took place on the fifth day of the 35-day battle. Rosenthal's photograph promptly became an indelible icon — of that battle, of that war in the Pacific, and of the Marine Corps itself — and has been widely reproduced.