Born in Floyd County, Virginia, Evans was a member of the Naval Academy class of 1864. He was ordered to active duty in September 1863. In the attacks on Fort Fisher, North Carolina, he exhibited great gallantry under fire on 15 January1865; when already wounded, he led his landing party through heavy fire to charge the Confederate defenses.
Evans held numerous important sea commands during the 1890s. In 1891 and 1892, commanding Yorktown on the Pacific Station, he won great acclaim for his firm and skillful handling of a tense situation with Chile, becoming known as "Fighting Bob" Evans.
Biography of Rear Admiral Robley D. Evans, from Naval Historical Center's Online Library of Selected Images (http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/pers-us/uspers-e/rd-evans.htm)
RobleyD. Evans, professor emeritus of physics, winner of the 1990 Enrico Fermi Award and a pioneer in studying the effects of radium on the human body, died of respiratory failure on December 31 in Paradise Valley, AZ, where he lived in retirement.
Professor Evans was a founder of the field of nuclear medicine and established the standard, used throughout the world, for the maximum permissible body burden of radium.
Professor Evans also was regarded as a superb teacher, and many of the leading nuclear physicists today were among his 1,200 graduate students, 100 of whom completed their theses under his direction.
Born in Floyd County, Virginia, Evans was a member of the Naval Academy class of 1864.
Rear Admiral Evans commanded the Great White Fleet in its passage in 1907 and 1908 from the Atlantic through the Straits of Magellan to the Pacific, where he was relieved of command because of ill health.
He died in Washington, D.C. Two destroyers, USS Evans (DD-78) and USS Evans (DD-552), were named in his honor.
Feeds |
Contact