Burke, Arleigh Albert “31 Knot Burke”, born 19-10-1901 in Boulder, Colorado,
nickname “31 Knot Burke”, to Oscar Burke and his wife Clara Mokler. His grandfather, August Björkgren, was a Swedish immigrant to the US and changed his surname to ‘Burke’, a common Irish surname, to sound more ‘American’. Due to the 1918 influenza outbreak, schools were closed in Boulder and he never graduated from high school. Burke won an alternate appointment to the United States Naval Academy given by his local congressman. During his time at the Academy, Burke was a member of 23rd Company. 


Arleigh graduated from the Academy in June 1923, and was commissioned as an ensign in the United States Navy. He married Roberta Gorsuch (1899–1997) of Washington, D.C.
Arleigh became a Admiral
of the United States Navy, who distinguished himself during World War II and the Korean War. He served as Chief of Naval Operations during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. Over the next 18 years, Burke prepared himself for combat, serving in battleships and destroyers. When World War II came, he found himself, to his great disappointment, in a shore billet at the Naval Gun Factory in Washington, D.C. After persistent effort on his part, he received at last orders to join the fighting in the South Pacific. His Destroyer Squadron 23 decisively defeated a Japanese force in the Battle of Cape St. George in the Solomon Islands. Burke subsequently served as Vice Admiral. Marc Albert Mitscher´s










Death and burial ground of Burke, Arleigh Albert “31 Knot Burke”.





Arleigh Albert Burke, high decorated, died on 01-01-1996, at very old age of 96, at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland and buried with his wife Roberta, on the U.S. Naval Academy cemetery. His neighbours are Admiral, Howard Kimmel,
2* Major General and attached to the Department of the Pacific, William Peterkin Upshur, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy Bomber Squadron Leader, Clarence Wade McKlusky and U.S. 5* Fleet Admiral 1944, Commander-in-Chief, United States Fleet, Ernst Joseph King.



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