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 (United States), he served as the 66th Governor of Rhode Island, as the Secretary of the Navy, and as a United States Senator. Early life and family 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 House Minority Leader for 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. 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. Marine Corps service 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: "Nowhere, 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 "He was the