"Midshipmen Gilmore was nicknamed Gil and the Count. He had red hair and freckles and was the manager of the soccer team. 

The Count comes from New Orleans, where the cotton grows rampant and the Negroes sing all night in the mellow of the moon. Many will attest to his loving ways, charming stories and unruffled disposition-the later shown by the complacent way in which he let the whole deck bum his skags. 

Eighteen months in the Navy, before he entered the Academy, made him seemingly impervious to women, although we stop and wonder when we see the color of some of his letters. He is famed for red hair and freckles, as well as savviness, which persists in spite of his passionate love for "Tormenting Tales" and other literature which he read to "broaden his mind and enlarge the scope of his activities". 

Gil was one of the prominent members of the Fourth Deck Purity League, founded Youngster year and known the Academy over for the songs of melody and variety of its members. The others gave the melody and he furnished the variety. He insists, though, that he is a real leader of men and proves it by telling you to look up the old Anglo- Saxon meaning of Walter." ²

Midshipman Gilmore ranked thirty-fourth in a gradating class of 456 members. He graduated from the Academy on 3 June 1926 and was commissioned an Ensign in the United States Navy. 

After graduation he was assigned to the battleship U. S. S. Mississippi [BB 41]. He served three years on the Mississippi and then six months on the destroyer Perry [DD340]. He was ordered to the Submarine School, New London, Conn. in January 1931. After completing the course in June 1931, he was assigned to the U. S. S. S 48, then on duty at the Panama Canal Zone until June 1932. He next attended the Navy Postgraduate School, Annapolis and then was assigned to the Washington Navy Yard for practical instruction in ordnance engineering from July 1932 to May 1935. He assisted with the fitting out the U.S.S. Shark [SS174] at the Electric Boat Company, Groton, Connecticut in 1935-36. He went aboard when the Shark was commissioned on 25 June 1936. He served as her Executive Officer and Navigator until November 1937. The Shark was assigned to the Panama Canal Zone for duty. While serving in Panama he survived an assault by a of gang of thugs, who cut his throat during a trip ashore. He was then assigned to Submarine Division 12, which was based at Pearl Harbor, and served as the executive officer of the U. S. S. Dolphin from 1937 to 1939. His shore duty was at the Naval [Ordnance] Proving Grounds, Dahlgren, Va. from May 1939 to January 1941.

Home