Chafee, John H. (039083)

John H. Chafee
Personal details
Birth name	John Lester Hubbard Chafee
Born	22 October 1922 Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.
Died	24 October 1999 Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.
Nativity	United States
Religion	Protestant
Known for	United States Senator (Rhode Island)
Awards	Presidential Medal Of Freedom (2000)
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch	United States Marine Corps
ASN	039083
Rank	Captain
Rank at Ritchie	Second Lieutenant
Camp Ritchie	Class 23 (25 September – 23 November 1944)
Section	6A
Battles / wars	World War II Guadalcanal campaign Battle of Okinawa Korean War Battle of Chosin Reservoir

Awards and honors

Presidential Medal of Freedom (2000)	Combat Action Ribbon w/ 5/16" gold star

Navy and Marine Corps Presidential Unit Citation w/ two 3/16" bronze stars (Three awards – Guadalcanal, Okinawa, Chosin Reservoir)	American Campaign Medal	Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal w/ two 3/16" bronze stars

World War II Victory Medal	National Defense Service Medal	Korean Service Medal w/ two 3/16" bronze stars

Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation	United Nations Korea Medal	Republic of Korea War Service Medal

• Audubon Medal (National Audubon Society)
• A bronze statue of Chafee was erected in Colt State Park, overlooking Narragansett Bay, in 2003

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John Lester Hubbard Chafee (October 22, 1922 – October 24, 1999) was an American politician and officer in the United States Marine Corps. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 66th governor of Rhode Island, as the secretary of the Navy, and as a United States senator.

Biography

John Lester Hubbard Chafee (October 22, 1922 – October 24, 1999) was an American politician and officer in the United States Marine Corps. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 66th governor of Rhode Island, as the secretary of the Navy, and as a United States senator.

Chafee was born in Providence, Rhode Island, to a politically active family. He was the son of Janet Melissa (née Hunter) and John Sharpe Chafee. His great-grandfather, Henry Lippitt, was governor of Rhode Island (1875–1877), and among his great-uncles were a Rhode Island governor, Charles Warren Lippitt, and United States Senator Henry Frederick Lippitt. His uncle, Zechariah Chafee, was a Harvard law professor, and a notable civil libertarian. His cousin was Frederick Lippitt, former Minority Leader in the Rhode Island House of Representatives. He had two daughters and four sons, one of whom is former Rhode Island Governor and former United States Senator Lincoln Chafee. One of his daughters, Tribbie, died following an accident at a horse show in October 1968 at the age of 14. His eldest child, John H. Chafee, is a UCLA alumnus.

John Chafee graduated from a coeducational primary school, Providence's Gordon School, in 1931 and then attended Providence Country Day School. In 1940, he graduated from Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts. Chafee was an Episcopalian.

Chafee was in his third year as an undergraduate at Yale University when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He interrupted his undergraduate studies and enlisted in the Marine Corps, spending his 20th birthday fighting on the island of Guadalcanal from August 8 until November 1942, when the First Marine Division was relieved. After receiving his commission as a second lieutenant, he fought in the Battle of Okinawa in the spring of 1945.

Following the war, he received degrees from Yale University in 1947 and Harvard Law School in 1950. At Yale, he was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon (Phi chapter) and Skull and Bones fraternities. In 1951, he was recalled to active service to be a Marine rifle company commander during the Korean War with Dog Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines.

Author James Brady, in his memoir of the Korean War and serving as a Marine under Chafee, writes that "[n]owhere, at any time, did John Chafee serve more nobly than he did as a Marine officer commanding a rifle company in the mountains of North Korea," and that "[h]e was the only truly great man I've yet met in my life..."

Chafee's military awards include three awards of the Presidential Unit Citation, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, the World War II Victory Medal, the Korean Service Medal and the United Nations Korea Medal.

Chafee became active in behind-the-scenes Rhode Island politics by helping elect a mayor of Providence in the early 1950s. He successfully ran for a seat in the Rhode Island House of Representatives in 1956 and later became the minority leader. He was re-elected in 1958 and 1960, the latter a year when many Republicans were swept from office in his state.

As governor, Chafee helped create the state's public transportation administration as well as what was known as the Green Acres program, a conservation effort. In 1968, he served as chair of the Republican Governors Association. He served as governor until 1969, when he was surprisingly defeated by underdog Democrat Frank Licht. Reasons ascribed for the defeat include the fact that, after running three times on a strong anti-income tax platform, Chafee now said that such a tax was imperative (indeed his anti-tax opponent went on to champion one in 1971); and that he stopped campaigning after his daughter was killed.

On October 24, 1999, around seven months after Chafee announced his retirement from the Senate, he died from heart failure at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, two days after his 77th birthday. President Clinton eulogized him, saying, "He embodied the decent center. For him, civility was not simply a matter of personal manners. He believed it was essential to the preservation of our democratic system." Chafee was succeeded in the Senate by his son, Lincoln, who went on to win a full term in his own right in 2000 and later served as Governor of Rhode Island.

The USS Chafee (DDG-90), the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor and the John H. Chafee National Wildlife Refuge were named in his honor.

Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island named its World Trade Center on campus after John H. Chafee for his continuing support for global trade and his association with the university.

The Chafee Social Science Center at the University of Rhode Island is named in his honor. It is the tallest building in southern Rhode Island.

The Foster Care Independence Act of 1999, passed on November 23, 1999, after his death, is known as the John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program. The programs are administered at the state level by Social Service Agencies. One such program, in example, is the North Carolina Links program

Research notes

• Guadalcanal
• Okinawa
• USMC officer; Okinawa, Korea
• Governor and Senator, Rhode Island; Secretary of the Navy
• Portrait and summary from Notable Ritchie Boys slides (source).

Gallery

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Technical record

Field	Imported value
Approx Age at Death	77
Class_ASN	39083
Class_Name	CHAFEE, John H.
match_method	asn_exact_name_exact
row_source	both

Sources

• Wikipedia: John Chafee
• Camp Ritchie class roster (classes 1–31), merged research file
• NARA World War II Army enlistment records (where a NARA ASN is present)
• 1940 U.S. Census (where a census match is present)