THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 26, 1995 TAG: 9504260441
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
Captain Robert Hugh Gillock, USN (Ret.), 75, died April 25, 1995.
He is survived by his wife, Polly Kelly Gillock; a daughter, Sharon Smith of Burke; a granddaughter, Jennifer Slama of Charlottesville; two brothers, Thomas and Gordon Gillock of Arkansas City, Kan.; and several nieces and nephews.
Born in Arkansas City, he attended local schools and entered the US Naval Academy with the wartime class of 1943 which was graduated in 1942. Almost immediately, he was assigned to the Pacific theater of operations as gunnery officer on the destroyers USS Case and USS Albert W. Grant, participating in most of the naval engagements and amphibious invasions of the next two years. Returning to the U.S. in 1944 for flight training, he was designated a Naval Aviator and was engaged in aviation activities for the remainder of his career. After providing logistics support to the atomic bomb tests in the Pacific, Captain Gillock was reassigned to the then Top Secret project code named Operation Highjump designed to preempt Soviet aspirations in the Antarctic. He was personally responsible for exploring, mapping and claiming for the U.S. thousands of miles of coastal territory of the Antarctic subcontinent.
Subsequently, he performed command and staff duties in Fleet Air Wing 11, VP 34, VP 18, the Navy's aviation test and evaluation facility at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, and the carrier USS Randolph. He was twice assigned to the Bureau of Aeronautics, Department of the Navy. He was retired at the Naval Air Station, Norfolk. He had a second career as professor of engineering at the Virginia Beach campus of Tidewater Community College, from which he was again retired in 1982.
Captain Gillock compiled the documentary history of the Western Group of Operation Highjump and his definitive essay on the subject will be published this month. He was a graduate of the Navy Postgraduate School, the Naval War College, the Advanced Management Program of the Harvard Business School and the Pennsylvania State University, from which he was awarded a Masters degree.
A memorial service will be held at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, April 27, 1995, at Baylake Pines United Methodist Church. Burial will be in Arlington National Cemetery Wednesday, May 3, at 9 a.m. with full military honors. The family will receive friends from 7 to 8:30 p.m. today at Hollomon-Brown Funeral Home, Bayside Chapel. Memorial contributions may be made to the Class of 1943 Fund, US Naval Academy Alumni Association, Annapolis, Md.
KEYWORDS: DEATH OBITUARY by CNB