Navy Lieutenant JG Tom Steimer, PHS Class of 1960 was a F-4 Phantom weapon officer and was lost at sea in 1967 due to a power loss on a USS Kitty Hawk carrier launch from Yankee Station off North Vietnam. At 5:29 on May 8, 1967 F-4B BuNo 152997 was launched from Kitty Hawk. The aircraft suffered an engine failure as it went off the catapult and both crewmen ejected. Both had good chutes and both landed in the water off the carrier’s port side. As the carrier steamed past the two men the pilot, LTJG L.M. Tuft, was seen in good shape, but the LTJG Steimer was lying face-down in the water. By the time the plane guard helicopter arrived from its position on Kitty Hawk’s starboard side Steimer had disappeared beneath the surface. Tuft was picked up without further difficulty. During the Vietnam War, Tom’s Navy fighter squadron, VF-114 lost 20 F-4 Phantoms.

As a student in Piedmont, Tom and his brother along with future Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, were Eagle Scouts in Piedmont.

According to a letter Tom wrote to his parents on April 9, 1967 he was expecting orders to return stateside shortly for a posting to one of two East Coast locations.