"A NAVAL ACADEMY RING---IT'S JOURNEY"

The USS Houston (CA-30), built in 1929, became FDR's favorite ship.  When he traveled from coast to coast it was aboard the Houston, through the Canal to Hawaii to the west coast and back again the same way.
The Houston was part of the Asian Fleet and among the first ships to be lost in the battle with the Japanese fleet.  She was sunk in March 1942, beginning the forty-two month ordeal for her survivors.
Lt. (jg) Francis B. Weiler, of the Houston, died of his wounds in a small Dutch hospital in Pandeglang March 26, 1942.  A nurse gave his Naval Academy ring to a doctor who surrendered the ring to a Japanese officer.  Eight months later on Guadalcanal a stretcher bearer, taking the ring from a dead Japanese, gave it to a Marine Captain Gordon Gayle thinking he would know what to do with the keepsake.  Later Gayle looked inside the ring and read the name of his classmate.  Gayle gave it to an artillery officer, Captain Swisher who was headed back to Henderson Field , with instructions to see that the Div Quartermaster got the ring so it could be returned to the states.
Before Swisher left his orders were changed and he was sent to the front to spot for artillery, where he was killed by a mortar round.
The ring passed to an Army private who was mortally wounded on November 23, 1942. His dying wish was for his personal effects, including the ring,  be sent to his parents in North Dakota.  That is how the ring finally was returned, in March, 1943 to Fran Weiler's parents in Philadelphia after passing through nine different hands......Medicineman!