Ralph Mervine Warfield – Rear Admiral, United States Navy

ARLINGTON BURIAL FOR R. M. WARFIELD
Rites at Fort Myer Tomorrow for Admiral Who Died in Subway Tuesday Night

UPPER MONTCLAIR, New Jersey, March 22, 1939 – Funeral services for Rear Admiral Ralph Mervine Warfield, USN, who died last night on a New York subway station of a heart attack, will be held at 3 P.M. Friday at the Fort Myer Chapel, Arlington, Virginia.  Burial will follow in Arlington National Cemetery.

Admiral Warfield, who resided here with his family, had been public works officer of the Third Naval District with headquarters in New York since January 20.  As such, he had been drawing up plans for caring for the 40,000 sailors of the United States Fleet who will arrive in New York on April 25 for the opening of the World’s Fair.

He had been a Rear Admiral since December, when he was promoted from the rank of Captain to fill a vacancy caused by the retirement of Rear Admiral A. L. Parsons.

Born at New Oxford, Massachusetts, he was a graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute at Worcester.  He received a commission as an Ensign in the Civil Engineering Corps of the United States Navy at Charleston, South Carolina.

His naval career included service in the World War, at the Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island; in the Navy Department at Washington and a New Orleans, Guam, Puget Sound, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Panama, Santo Domingo and Nicaragua. During the military operations at Santo Domingo from 1919 to 1922 he held several high positions in the provisional government of that country.

From 1936 until assuming his duties with the Third Naval District he had been public works office of the Fifth Naval District with headquarters at Norfolk, Virginia.  Prior to that service he had held a similar position in the Thirteenth Naval District on the Pacific Coast for four years.

Admiral Warfield was a thirty-second degree Mason and belonged also to the Shriners, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society of Military Engineers and the Military Order of the World War.

Surviving are his widow, Mrs. Marguerite Moreno Warfield; a daughter, Marian Warfield; a son, Ralph H. Warfield of Norfolk, and a brother, Orson E. Warfield of Cleveland.


  • WARFIELD, RALPH MERVINE
  • RR ADM C C U S NAVY
  • DATE OF DEATH: 03/21/1939
  • BURIED AT: SECTION 6  SITE 8459
  • ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

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