The Source for Navy News
Last of the "Golden 13" Dies
Story Number: NNS061121-07
Release Date: 11/21/2006 3:42:00 PM
By Kenneth Cronk, Navy Region Midwest Public Affairs
GREAT LAKES, Ill. (NNS) -- Family and friends bid farewell to Frank Ellis Sublett Nov. 12 at a memorial service in Chicago, honoring the last member of the first group of African-American men to receive commissions as officers in the U.S. Navy.
Nearly 100 visitors heard family members and friends give their recollections of Sublett.
“Grandpa Frank knew his attributes and his strengths and he took them out to the limit,” said grandson Anthony Sublett . “He urged me to do that, but I didn’t at the time, when I was in college. I realize now how important that is and I try to do it.”
The man who wrote the 1993 book of recollections of the Navy’s Golden 13 gave Sublett’s eulogy. Author Paul Stillwell said that during the writing of the book, “I came to know what real heroes and pioneers these men were.”
In the book’s forward, Gen. Colin Powell points out that, “…from the very beginning, they understood…that history had dealt them a stern obligation. They realized that in their hands rested the chance to help open the blind moral eye that America had turned on the question of race.”
A Navy honors team folded the flag that was presented to the widow, Susan Lopez-Sublett by Commander, Navy Region Midwest Rear Admiral Jon W. Bayless Jr.
Sublett was born in Murfreesboro, Tenn., March 5, 1920. He attended school in Glencoe and Winnetka, Ill., and spent one year at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He also attended George Williams College in Chicago and Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.
Sublett entered the Naval Reserve July 7, 1942, and attained the enlisted rate of Machinist’s Mate 1st Class prior to receiving his commission. Following commissioning, he was assigned to the Naval Training Station, Hampton Institute, Va., and then to the Naval Local Defense Forces in the 12th Naval District, San Francisco. He served with the Service Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet and the Naval Operating Force, Eniwetok Island, Marshall Islands. He was released from active duty in 1946.
Lt. j.g. Sublett earned the American Campaign Medal, the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory Medal.
For more information regarding the Golden 13, read "The Golden 13, Recollections of the First Black Naval Officers" one of the many titles that make up the Navy Professional Reading Program.
For related news, visit the Naval Service Training Command/Navy Region Midwest/Naval Station Great Lakes Navy NewsStand page at www.news.navy.mil/local/greatlakes/.
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