Adapted from "Captain Bud Kearns Beaver, United States Navy, Deceased"
[biography, dated 22 May 1964] in Modern Biographical Files collection, Navy Department Library.
Bud Kearns Beaver
17 October 1917 – 27 March 1997
PDF Version [669KB]
Bud Kearns Beaver was born in Beavertown, Pennsylvania, on October 17, 1917, son of the late Roy E. Beaver and Lulu Kearns Beaver (now Mrs. H. C. Lawrence). He entered the US Naval Academy on July 30, 1936, on appointment as Midshipman from Pennsylvania, and was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Science on June 6, 1940. Commissioned Ensign in the US Navy from that date, he subsequently advanced to the rank of Captain, to date from July 1, 1959.
After graduation from the Naval Academy in June 1940 he was assigned to USS Tennessee, and served as a junior officer on board that battleship his duties in communications, until April 1941. He then joined USS Washington, another battleship, and was serving in her gunnery department at the outbreak of World War II in December 1941. He remained on board the Washington until October 1942, participating in convoy operations in the Atlantic and the capture of Guadalcanal in the Pacific. On his return to the United States he began flight training at the Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida, where he was designated Naval Aviator in January 1944.
During the next fourteen months he served as Flight Officer, then Executive Officer of Patrol Squadron 208, which participated in the assault and occupation of Iwo Jima, from February 20 to March 7, 1945. Detached in March 1945, he was a student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the two years to follow, and was awarded the degree of Master of Science in Aeronautical Engineering in July 1947. He then had a tour of duty in the Bureau of Aeronautics, Navy Department, Washington, DC, attached to the Guided Missiles Division, and when detached in September 1949 was designated Head of the Materials Laboratory at the Naval Air Material Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He remained on duty there until June 1952.
He next served until August 1935 as Engineering Officer on the Staff of Commander Naval Air Force, Pacific, after which he headed the Aero Laboratory at the David W. Taylor Model Basin, Carderock, Maryland. Detached in July 1958 he next served as Director of the Airframe Design Division in the Bureau of Aeronautics, Navy Department, Washington, DC. He continued to serve in that position after the Bureau of Aeronautics and Ordnance were consolidated in January 1960 and designated the Bureau of Naval Weapons. In July 1961 he became the Bureau of Naval Weapons Representative at Convair (a division of the General Dynamics Corporation), San Diego, California, and in April 1962 was assigned to the Officer of the Bureau of Naval Weapons Fleet Readiness Representative, Pacific, with headquarters at the Naval Air Station, North Island, San Diego.
Captain Beaver has the American Defense Service Medal, Fleet Clasp; the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal; Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal; World War II Victory Medal; and the National Defense Service Medal.
He died March 27, 1997.
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