Abbot’s Commanding Officers:
Francis Walford “Waffles” Ingling
August 14, 1944 — May 21, 1946
Francis W. Ingling
Francis W. Ingling was born in 1912 and raised in Cleveland. He was a 1937 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy.
Lt. Commander Ingling relieved Commander Marshall E. Dornin as skipper of Abbot in August 1944 and led the ship through decommissioning at San Diego in February 1946.
After the war, Commander Ingling taught seamanship and navigation at the U.S. Naval Academy. By 1953 he was again commanding a Fletcher-class destroyer, Jarvis. In early 1959, Captain Ingling helped establish the Nuclear Weapons Training Center in Norfolk, Virginia, as its first commanding officer.
He died in Virginia Beach on 20 March 1990, aged 77. His wife, Rebecca Thornton Ingling, died at the age of 82 on 6 January 1996. They were survived by a daughter and two sons.
See Lt. Cdr. Ingling’s orders directing him to take command of Abbot.