Raymond Stanton Patton | |
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| Born | (1882-12-29)29 December 1882 |
| Died | 25 November 1937(1937-11-25) (aged 54) |
| Place of burial | |
| Allegiance | United States of America |
| Branch |
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| Rank |
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| Commands | USC&GSExplorer U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey |
| Conflicts | World War I |
Rear AdmiralRaymond Stanton Patton (29 December 1882 – 25 November 1937) was the second Director of theUnited States Coast and Geodetic Survey and a career officer in the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps, the predecessor of theNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps. He was the first Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps officer to reachflag rank.
Patton was born inDeGraff,Ohio, on 29 December 1882, the son of Oliver Patton and the former Ida M. Cloninger. After primary and secondary education atpublic schools inSidney, Ohio, he studiedengineering atCoast Guard Academy. AtWestern Reserve University, he graduated with aBachelor of Philosophy degree in June 1904.[1]
Within a month of his graduation, Patton accepted a position in 1904 in the Field Corps of theUnited States Coast and Geodetic Survey, which at the time was an entirely civilian organization. He began fieldwork in August 1904, serving along theUnited States East Coast as a civilian junior officer aboard the Coast and Geodetic SurveysurveylaunchUSC&GSHydrographer; during his tour aboardHydrographer, he participated in survey work to update theUnited States Coast Pilots publications and accompanied a shore party as it conductedtopographic surveys inVirginia. In 1906 he reported aboard the Coast and Geodetic Survey shipUSC&GSThomas R. Gedney for survey work along the southeast coast of theTerritory of Alaska.[1]
From the spring of 1907 to 1910, Patton served in thePhilippine Islands aboard two survey ships owned by theInsular Government of the Philippine Islands and operated by the Coast and Geodetic Survey,USC&GSRomblon andUSC&GSResearch. During this tour, he took part in hydrographic surveys of theTañon Strait, the north coast ofNegros, and the southeast coast ofLuzon and was a member of shore parties engaged in surveys ofMindanao,Bohol, andCamiguin and nearby islets.[1]
Returning to operations along the U.S. East Coast, Patton took part in projects such astriangulation inMassachusetts and resurveys of theDelaware Bay andAlbemarle Sound from 1910 to 1911. In the summer of 1911 he becameexecutive officer of the survey shipUSC&GSA. D. Bache, operating along theUnited States Gulf Coast. Later in 1911, he transferred to the survey shipUSC&GSCarlile P. Patterson to serve as her executive officer, initially for operations along the Alaskan coast, but before the year was over also including survey work along theUnited States West Coast and in thePacific Ocean approaches to thePanama Canal. In 1912, he became acommanding officer for the first time, taking command of the survey shipUSC&GSExplorer; for the next three years, he commanded her during survey operations along the coast of the Territory of Alaska, among the most important of which was survey work along the approach to theKuskokwim River inSouthwest Alaska.[1]
In 1915, Patton took charge of the Coast and Geodetic Survey office inWashington, D.C., responsible for the compilation and publication of theUnited States Coast Pilots, overseeing both field and office work necessary for the periodic revision and updating of the publications. During this tour, he also authored twoCoast Pilots, the 1916 edition of theCoast Pilot for the Alaskan coast fromYakutat Bay to theArctic Ocean and the 1917 edition of theCoast Pilot for the U.S. West Coast.[1]
The United States enteredWorld War I on the side of theAllies on 6 April 1917, and on 22 May 1917 a new uniformed service of the United States, theUnited States Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps, was created within the Coast and Geodetic Survey. Patton wascommissioned as alieutenant in the new service, serving as a commissionedhydrographic andgeodeticengineer. In accordance withExecutive Order 2707, he was among a number of Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps officers transferred to the jurisdiction of theUnited States Department of the Navy on 24 September 1917 for wartime service with theUnited States Navy. He was enrolled as a lieutenant in theUnited States Naval Reserve Force on 19 November 1917.[2]
Patton was assigned to the U.S. Navy'sBureau of Navigation, with which he took up duty at theUnited States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., as Assistant in the Time Service and Nautical Instrument Division. He became chief of the division on 1 March 1918. The division was responsible for purchasing and distributing to U.S. Navy vessels all navigational instruments exceptcompasses and compass fixtures; for the cleaning, compensation rating, and issue of all U.S. Navymarine chronometers; and with sending out the daily time signal bytelegraph andradio. Before World War I broke out, the U.S. Navy had obtained most of its navigational instruments from foreign manufacturers, and their production in the United States had only become a major effort since then, making the division's efforts to procure such instruments in a timely manner a challenging task.[2]
Patton received a promotion tolieutenant commander[1][2] on 1 October 1918.[2] After the war ended on 11 November 1918, he remained on duty in the Navy until 31 March 1919, when he received anhonorable discharge.[2]
Patton returned to the Coast and Geodetic Survey on 1 April 1919 to resume duties as a commissioned officer in the Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps. His first assignment upon his return was as Chief of the Chart Division, which at the time was under criticism for the length of time it took to produce new or updatednautical charts after the completion of field survey work. Until his arrival, Coast and Geodetic Survey officials viewed this delay as an inevitable consequence of the need for painstaking work to ensure the accuracy of new or updated charts, but Patton instituted a number of reforms – including a complete reorganization of the division, the adoption of a comprehensive production schedule for charts, and the introduction of more efficient techniques and equipment – that allowed the Chart Division to produce its charts in one-third the time it required before he took charge without any sacrifice of quality.[1]
In 1921, theState of New Jersey's Board of Commerce and Navigation askedUnited States Secretary of CommerceHerbert Hoover to assign a member of theUnited States Department of Commerce to serve on an engineering advisory board created to studybeach erosion in New Jersey and recommend better means of protecting valuable coastal areas from erosion. The Coast and Geodetic Survey was a component of the Department of Commerce, and Patton had conducted extensive research into beach erosion since taking charge of the Chart Division, so Hoover appointed him to serve on the advisory board while continuing his duties as chief of the Chart Division. Patton played an active role on the board, which published two reports – in 1922 and 1924 – which provided the State of New Jersey with information that allowed it to play an active role in protecting its beaches from erosion.[1]
While remaining Chief of the Chart Division, Patton became a member of theNational Research Council's Committee on Shoreline Investigations in 1925, and in 1926 he became the committee's Chairman. The Committee suspected that other states in addition to New Jersey faced beach erosion problems and that beach erosion might constitute a national problem for the United States that therefore was a matter of interest to the National Research Council. During Patton's tenure on the committee, it found that almost every state along the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts faced beach erosion problems and struggled to cope with them independently. In order to bring together the funding and personnel necessary to address the beach erosion problem on a national scale, the Committee on Shoreline Investigations and thegovernors of the states along the East and Gulf Coasts organized through joint action theAmerican Shore and Beach Preservation Association in December 1926, with Patton playing a major role in its formation and serving as its secretary-treasurer until June 1929 and as one of its directors until his death in 1937.[1]
Possessing extensive knowledge of beach erosion issues and shoreline preservation efforts – he was considered one of the foremost experts on the subject in the United States[1] – as well as of the activities and records of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, Patton frequently served as an expert witness in litigation concerning riparian property boundaries.[1]
The first director of the Coast and Geodetic Survey,ColonelErnest Lester Jones, died on 9 April 1929. Patton, who had by then reached the rank ofcaptain, saw his long tour as chief of the Chart Division finally come to an end on 29 April 1929, when Herbert Hoover, by thenPresident of the United States, selected him to succeed Jones as director. During his tour as director, which lasted until his death in 1937, Patton continued and accelerated reforms Jones had begun to modernize the Coast and Geodetic Survey's surveying methods and equipment and increase the efficiency of its operations, in many cases championing the adoption and testing of experimental methods that proved successful as their use was refined and expanded.[1]
After the onset of theGreat Depression, Patton procured emergency funds to expand the Coast and Geodetic Survey's coastal operations between 1933 and 1935, using the expansion as a vehicle to both put unemployed Americans, especially engineers, to work and to catch up on a backlog of urgently needed survey work that had been awaiting the Coast and Geodetic Survey's attention. In 1936, Patton received a promotion torear admiral, becoming the first officer of the Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps to reachflag rank.[1]
Patton married Virginia Mitchell[1] (1889–1980)[3] ofSeattle,Washington on November 7, 1912.[1] They had a son, Raymond S. Patton, and two daughters, Helen M. Patton and Virginia M. Patton.[1]
During his Coast and Geodetic Survey career, Patton earned a reputation for having a brilliant mind and a wide range of interests – he authored numerous articles on a wide variety of subjects for the Coast and Geodetic Survey and for scientific and engineering journals – and as a modest and unassuming colleague and leader with high ideals and integrity.[1]
Patton was elected a member of theAmerican Society of Civil Engineers on 11 July 1921.[1] At the time of his death, he was past president of the Washington Society of Engineers, a director of theAmerican Shore and Beach Preservation Association, a life trustee of theNational Geographic Society, a trustee of theWoods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and a member of theAssociation of American Geographers, theAmerican Geophysical Union, theAmerican Astronomical Society, theCosmos Club, and theNational Research Council's Engineering Advisory Committee on Coast Erosion to the New Jersey Board of Commerce and Navigation.[1]
Patton died on 25 November 1937 at his home in Washington, D.C. He was buried with full military honors on 27 November 1937 atArlington National Cemetery inArlington, Virginia.[1]
In tribute to Patton after his death, U.S. Secretary of CommerceDaniel C. Roper wrote:[1]
In the death of Admiral Patton the Government has lost one of its most capable officials and the engineering profession one of its outstanding leaders. He was held in the highest esteem by his associates and by Members of and committees in theCongress with whom he came in contact, and was recognized as an authority in his work throughout the world. The Coast and Geodetic Survey, over which he has been the head for 8½ years, is one of the most efficient and progressive bureaus of our Government. Devotion to service by men of the character, integrity, and standing of Admiral Patton gives a new assurance to American citizenship; it gives us greater confidence in the future of our country. We grieve over his passing, but we are thankful for his contribution to the service of the Department of Commerce and to the Nation.[1]
The U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey auxiliary survey vesselUSC&GSPatton (ASV-80), in service from 1941 to 1967, was named for Patton.
| Military offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Director, United States Coast and Geodetic Survey 1929–1937 | Succeeded by |
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| National | |
