Francis Joseph Hale, died May 5, 2020, at Stewart Health Center of Springmoor Life Care Community. Joe was born at the US Army hospital in Cavite City, Manila, Territory of the Philippines on October 24, 1922, the son of Lt. Harold Francis (USN) and Teresa Mary (Vaughan) Hale. As the son of a submarine officer, he spent his childhood in Connecticut, Maine, Hollywood, Florida, and Washington, D.C., where he graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1938. He entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in July 1941, and was commissioned in the Corps of Engineers on D-day, June 6, 1944. Joe served the Army and Air Force for 22 years, rising to the rank of Colonel.
During those years he completed Parachute School at Fort Benning, Georgia, served with a combat engineer battalion in Europe until mid-1945. Thereafter, he retrained with the Army Map Service and was the officer in charge of mapping uncharted islands in the Philippines. By order of President Truman, he was one of 62 officers selected by Major General Leslie Groves to develop a military capability to assemble and deploy atomic bombs at the research facility at Sandia AFB, NM. He spent five months on Eniwetok Atoll during Operation Sandstone where the US tested three atomic bombs.
Transferring to the Air Force at its creation in 1947, he became a flight instructor in the P-51 at Nellis AFB, transitioning to the early jet fighters. From there, he was sent to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his Master of Science. Upon graduation from MIT, he went to Eglin AFB as Director of Ballistics. In 1956 he was transferred to Los Angles by Gen Bernard Schriever as a member of the Western Development Division (code name for the USAF Ballistic Missile Division, Air Research and Development Command) where he served under Colonel Ed Hall, first as deputy director of the Thor missile program and later in the development of the Minuteman.
In 1959, he returned to MIT where he earned his Doctorate of Science in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering with a thesis on the boundary layers of an MHD accelerator for space propulsion. His next assignment was to the USAF Academy as the Professor and Head of the Department of Astronautics. In 1962, he was assigned to the Pentagon as Deputy Director for Research and Development, Directorate of Development Plans, Headquarters USAF.
In 1965 he retired from the Pentagon and joined the faculty of North Carolina State University where he remained as a Professor of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering until his second retirement in 1989. At NCSU, he called upon his military experiences to create new and effective aerospace engineering courses, and to write three text books and collaborate on a fourth with Dr. Jesse Doolittle. During his years at NCSU, Dr. Hale left the campus for a year on three occasions; in 1972 to the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, in 1976 to West Point as the first civilian Professor of Mechanics, and in 1982 to Wrightsville Beach NC to serve as the Technical Director of the Desalination Test Facility of the Department of the Interior. In 1990, he taught at the US Naval Academy as a Secretary of the Navy Fellow in Aerospace Engineering. He taught two professional development courses each year for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) on aircraft design and space flight until 2013.
Joe loved to read, tell stories about his adventures, board sail, take long walks while smoking a cheap cigar, row his boat at Lake Royale, travel, and sing babies to sleep with “My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean.” He was a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Society of Automotive Engineers (Ralph R. Teeter Educational award 1985), the Order of Daedalians, and the Sons of the American Revolution. In 2006 he was named to the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame, Peterson AFB, Colorado Springs.
Joe was predeceased by his parents and his younger brother Richard Edward Hale. He is survived by his wife Mary Alice (Longcrier) Hale, his sons F.J. Hale III and Olin Hale, and his daughter Margaret Anne Hale. He was “JoePa” for almost 40 years to four stepchildren: Caroline Beal Haire, J. Frank Beal, Sr. (Kristine), Alice Beal Georgia (Jim), Charles Marcus Beal; six step-grandchildren: Jessemyn Georgia, Mary Morgan Georgia, Jesse F. Beal, Jr., Evan G. Beal, Owen W. Beal, and Elijah J. Haire. His favorite great-grandchild was Aiden Michael Akers.
A Private Service and Urn Placement will be held at the Mausoleum of Raleigh Memorial Park. Memorials may be sent to Springmoor Endowment Fund, 1500 Springmoor Dr, Raleigh, NC 27615.
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