Charles Coffin

He graduated in 1945 from the United States Naval Academy, Class of 1946. Commissioned as “Ensign C. Coffin, USN, 447215” he received nuclear safety training at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard’s Radiological Safety Laboratory. His principal assignment was Operations Crossroads, a post-war study of the effects of nuclear weapons on warships. In 1946, he witnessed two test explosions of atomic bombs in the Marshall Islands. In 1947, he served as radiological safety officer during decontamination of damaged target ships prior to their towing to Pearl Harbor and San Francisco. Concerned about radiological risks from the damaged warships, he successfully insisted that all Navy decontamination personnel and their commanding officers respect the unknowns about radiation and strictly follow Navy safety procedures. His advocacy was heard and accepted all the way up the chain of naval command to the Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations. Historian Robert L. Campbell described Ensign Coffin’s stubborn insistence on safety, in FOOTPRINTS TO A LEGACY (Xlibris 2009), as helping to usher the United States Navy safely into the nuclear age. His Navy service was relatively brief, but he considered himself a life-long “Navy” man. He never tired of describing the human side of his naval experiences to family, friends and acquaintances.

Following his service, he returned to his family’s deep roots in Tennessee. His maternal great-great-great-great-grandfather, George Michael Huffaker (1757-1838), had resided in what is now Tennessee before statehood in 1796, making his family one of East Tennessee Historical Society’s “First Families of Tennessee.” His paternal great-great-grandfather, Dr. Charles Coffin (1775-1853), had been the University of Tennessee’s third president from 1827 to 1832. In 1949, he obtained a second undergraduate degree in business administration, this time from the University of Tennessee. He then joined Coffin Shoe Company to work with his father and younger brother. He continued working as a well-known shoe merchant in Knoxville until he retired in 1982.

During retirement, he enjoyed out-of-town visits to his children, frequent day trips to the Great Smokey Mountains, supporting friends in need, lunches with buddies and family tailgates at Tennessee Volunteer football games. While attending Knoxville High, he had been an assistant manager of Tennessee’s 1938 and 1939 football teams, which included his future brother-in-law, Pryor Bacon of Chattanooga. At family tailgates, he was a reliable source of stories about those old teams, head coach Robert Neyland and, of course, the U.S. Navy.

He was preceded in death by both parents, his sister Josephine Coffin Bacon, his brother Hector Coffin III and his wife Edna Orr Coffin. In addition to his brother James Park Coffin Sr., he is survived by two children, son Charles Hector Coffin and daughter-in-law Ann Fritts, and daughter Elizabeth Coffin Williams; three grandchildren, Allaire Coffin, Parker Coffin and Austin Williams; and many nephews and nieces including James Park Coffin Jr. and Leslie Coffin Swift.

A private graveside service will be held at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 3, 2016, at Sherwood Memorial Gardens, 3176 Airport Hwy, Alcoa, Tennessee 37701. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to THE PAT SUMMITT ALZHEIMER’S FOUNDATION, www.patsummitt.org.