VESSEL TO BEAR NAME OF WEBER
A destroyer escort vessel to be launched May 1, at Quincy, Mass., will be named the Weber in honor of a former Des Moines boy and Drake university graduate, university officials announced Wednesday.
The ship will be named for Ensign Thomas Weber, who was reported killed in the battle of Midway last June, after scoring a direct hit on a Japanese aircraft carrier. Last December he was awarded the navy cross posthumously.
His mother, Mrs. M. R. Walsh of Galesburg, Ill., has accepted an invitation to act as sponsor of the vessel.
Weber, also know in Des Moines as Fred Walsh, was graduated from Drake in 1938. He was manager of the track team and was active for several years in preparations for the Drake Relays.
Two of his aunts live here: Mrs. E. F. Weber, of 2119 S. E. Sixth ave., and Mrs. Ray Maxwell, 1721 E. Thirty-third st.
Source: The Des Moines Morning Register, Des Moines, Iowa, Thursday, March 25, 1943
