Lucky Bag Yearbook

From the 1960 Lucky Bag:

GERALD THOMAS SKIDGEL

After a year of college at Bowdoin, which is in the heart of the Ivy Colleges in Maine, Jere decided to don the Navy Blue and to enter into the arms of Mother Bancroft. Being an ardent sports enthusiast, he will always be remembered for his spirit and sportsmanship which brought victory to several company and battalion teams. Although not a star man, he experienced little difficulty with academics. After his classmates mastered his New England dialect, they never seemed to tire of his tales of his beloved Maine. When he enters Navy Air, we know the Navy will have a hard worker, cool thinker, and above all, a fine gentleman.

Loss

Gerald was lost on February 14, 1960, when the Marine helicopter he was co-piloting crashed into the guywire of a 2060-foot television tower at Galesburg, North Dakota. The four crewmen were also killed. The helicopter was assigned to Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Maryland, and was flying out of Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota, on a routine training flight performing cold-weather tests.

Other Information

From Shipmate, April 1968:

Lt. Skidgel, who was born in Maine, graduated from the Naval Academy in 1960. Following flight training at Pensacola, he was designated a naval aviator in January 1962. He served with Helicopter Squadrons 10 and 6 at Ream Field, Fla. He was assigned to the Naval Air Test Pilot School, Naval Air Test Center at Patuxent at the time of the accident. He is survived by his widow, Jane, and three children, Stephen Pratt, Michael Folsom and Mary Katherine Skidgel, all of Lexington Park.

From researcher Kathy Franz:

In April, 1951, Gerald was one of the Reynolds School players who put on two plays:  “No Greater Love” and “Junior Detective.”

He graduated from Thornton Academy in 1955. He was All-Telegram League catcher on the Thronton nine that won the 1954 Telegram League Championship. He was center on the football team that won the 1954 state Class L championship.

He attended Bowdoin College for one year and was center on the football team.

Gerald was nominated to the Naval Academy by Congressman Robert Hale in January, 1956.

On June 18, 1960, Gerald married Jane Lowell Staples in Christ Episcopal Church in Biddeford, Maine.

He was aboard a ship which served in the Pacific Ocean recovery area for the Gordon Cooper space flight in May, 1963.

Gerald was aboard the anti-submarine warfare aircraft carrier USS Kearsarge serving with Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron Six. The ship arrived in San Diego in late December, 1964.

A memorial plaque in his honor was presented in a ceremony at Thornton Academy in June, 1968.

Gerald is buried in Maryland.

Photographs

From the April 1968 issue of Shipmate.

From the Evening Express on April 16, 1951

From the Evening Express on July 27, 1957

From the Portland Press Herald on January 14, 1956

From the Portland Press Herald on June 22, 1956

From the 1963 USS Kearsarge cruise book

From the 1964 USS Kearsarge cruise book