WILLIAM G. EATON
Name: WILLIAM G. EATON
Entry Date: 49
Exit Date: 52
Rating:
Status: D: 01/25/2011

Commander William (Bill) G. Eaton, USN (Ret.) died on January 25, 2011 in Virginia Beach, VA. Born in Charleston, SC, March 26, 1922, he graduated from the Hamburg, NY, public school system in June 1940 and entered the US Navy where he won an appointment to the US Naval Academy. He graduated from the Naval Academy in June 1944 with the class of 1945. In World War II he served as gunnery officer aboard the USS Blue, DD744, and USS Marshall, DD676. After a number of surface ship assignments he entered flight training and received his wings in September 1949 at Pensacola, FL. Additional Navy assignments included Patrol Squadrons VP21 in Patuxent River, MD (Bill served in VP21 from 1949 to 1952), and VP45 in Coco Solo, Panama; the NROTC Unit at the University of South Carolina in Columbia; the USN Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA, where he earned a Master’s Degree in Physics; the CNO staff at the Pentagon; and the CINCLANTFLT staff in Norfolk, VA. After retiring from the Navy in 1965, he worked for Northrop Corporation until 1972, where he proudly contributed to the first manned lunar landing. He then embarked on a twenty-five-year career teaching mathematics and science in the Norfolk and Virginia Beach public school systems and at Tidewater Community College.