ROBERT HALL PURRINGTON (1943-1971) (Vietnam)

Lieutenant Robert Hall Purrington ’66 died of leukemia on the morning of February 27,
1971, at Philadelphia Naval Hospital.

Bob’s home was in Hartford, Connecticut. He graduated from the Loomis School in Windsor,
Connecticut in 1961 and entered Princeton in 1962. He majored in economics and was a member

of Cap and Gown Club. As commodore of the Princeton University Yacht Club during his senior

year, he led the sailing team to a victorious season highlighted by winning the McMillan Cup,

emblematic of intercollegiate yachting supremacy.

After graduation he attended the U.S. Navy Officer
Candidate and Flight Training schools and received his wings as a Navy jet pilot.
He was subsequently assigned to Attack Bomber Squadron 86 aboard the U.S.S. Cored
Sea. As a member of that squadron he flew 121 combat missions over Indochina, and
visited troops in the field of South Vietnam and Cambodia. After short visits to several
Asian countries, he returned to the U.S. in the spring of 1970 to marry the former Shirley
Smith and take up residence in Kingsville, Texas, where he was stationed as a flight
instructor.

Bob is survived by his wife, Shirley; and by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur
Purrington, and sisters, Sarah Jane and Patricia Luce Purrington, of 48 Hickory Lane,
Hartford, Connecticut. His family has asked that memorial gifts be made in the form of
donations to Saint Jude’s Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, a children’s leukemia research
institution (PAW, April 20, 1971)