Capt. Jack Pate USN (Ret)

Captain Jack Almand Pate was born in Cordele, Georgia on 28 February 1923. He graduated from high school there in 1940, having served as Class President of both the Junior and Senior Classes and as a four-letter athlete on the school’s teams. After attending Auburn University for a year, he received a senatorial appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy where he earned the nickname of Tiger while participating in intramural sports, and graduated in June 1944 with the war-shortened Class of 1945. During WWII he served as a line officer on the renowned aircraft carrier Enterprise, and was awarded battle stars for the campaigns of Leyte, Luzon, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. He also won the Legion of Merit for later services. In 1945 Jack married Jane Stapleton, of Elberton, Georgia who had been his June Week date; and retired from active duty in 1972 after serving as a naval aviator in assignments that included Command of a Patrol Squadron; Assistant Naval Attaché in Rome, Italy; and Senior Navy Representative at the Army War College in Carlisle Barracks, Pa. In retirement he was employed in the insurance business in Tampa, Florida for a number of years while residing in St. Petersburg where Jane passed away in 1978. He was remarried there to Elizabeth Burris Stevens in 1983. Jack and Elizabeth moved to Atlantic Beach, Florida in 1986 and lived there until moving into the nearby Fleet Landing Retirement Community in 2008. Jack enjoyed his swimming pool in Atlantic Beach and golfing with his buddies known as The Geriatrics for many rounds. Unfortunately, Elizabeth passed away in 2011 after many happy years of their marriage, but Jack continued to live at Fleet Landing and enjoyed the frequent visits from the children of his marriage to Jane: Colonel U.S. Army (ret) David S. Pate of Holmes Beach Florida; Carol Pate Flannery (Mrs. Michael) of Portland, Oregon; and Sally P. Dunn (Mrs. Kevin) of Greenville, South Carolina.

A Memorial Service is scheduled to be held at Christ Episcopal Church in Ponte Vedra, at 2:30 PM on the 1st of December 2016.