Donald Boone Whitmire – Rear Admiral, United States Navy

July 1, 1922 – May 3, 1991

From a contemporary news report

Donald B. Whitmire, 68, a retired Navy Rear Admiral who had been a noted collegiate football player, died of cancer May 3, 1991 at Walter Reed Army Hospital. He lived in Annandale, Virginia.

“A 1946 gradute of the United States Naval Academy, he served two tours in Vietnamese waters. He commanded an amphibious troop transport in 1967. In the mid-1970s he commanded one of the Seventh Fleet’s amphibious groups and participated in the evacution operations of Saigon. A submariner, he had also commanded submarines and a submarine division in the Atlantic. he also had commanded an amphibious squadron in the Mediterranean. His last assignment before retiring from the Navy in 1977, was on the Atlantic Fleet staff.

“He was born in Tennessee and grew up in Alabama. He attended the University of Alabama from 1939 to 1942. An All-American Tackle, he was named to the Crimson Tide all-time Cotton and Orange Bowl teams. He enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1942, then ws ordered to the Naval Academy the following year. At the Naval Academy he was an All-American again and won the Knute Rockne Trophy and the Academy’s Thompson Trophy. He also served as Brigade Commander. In 1956 he was elected to the collegiate National Football Hall of Fame.

“After retiring from the Navy, he spent a year as Corporate Affairs Director of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association. He retired in 1978 and was presented with a patriotism award by President Ronald Reagan in 1984. He is survived by his wife, Joan C., two sons, Navy Commander Robert Whitmire and Richard N. Whitmire; two brothers; two sisters and two grandchildren.”

He is buried in Section 59 of Arlington National Cemetery. His stone calls him “Big Daddy.”

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