High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Vice Admiral Thomas J. Walker (6 August 1919 ? 6 May 2003) was a U.S. Navy officer who served as first commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Constellation. Thomas Jackson Walker III was born in Edgartown, Massachusetts (on the island of Martha's Vineyard), on 6 August 1919, into a family with long maritime connections?three of his great-grandfathers had been whaling ship captains. After attending schools in Massachusetts and Florida, he attended the Marion Military Institute in Alabama. He then entered the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, with the class of 1939, and while there was stroke of the Academy crew and vice-president of his class for four years. Following his commission as an Ensign in June 1939, he joined the USS Minneapolis.