Biography

Nathan Mathewson Shippee (1919 – 2012) was a native Rhode Islander, growing up the third of five children in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

He was a business major at Rhode Island State College (later the University of Rhode Island), he supported himself through to graduation. As a college sophomore, he endured the ferocious 1938 hurricane that struck coastal Rhode Island with virtually no warning and participated, along with his fellow cadets, in rescue and recovery efforts. As a member of the ROTC, he took part in training during his college years. In 1940 he was inducted into the National Society of Scabbard and Blade. As a debater he won the competition to deliver the Senior Class oration at his graduation ceremony in 1941. Upon graduation in 1941 he was sworn in as a Second Lieutenant in the US Army. In the summer of 1942 he moved to Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, NY, and from there he shipped out to North Africa in November 1942.

Nathan spent the next three years in combat including three invasion landings, first in Morocco as part of Operation Torch, then in Salerno, Italy as part of Operation Avalanche, and finally in Cavalaire-Sur-Mer, near Toulon in southern France as part of Operation Anvil, later named Dragoon.

His specialty, a new role in World War II, was as invasion port commander in charge of receiving and off-loading ships of both cargo and men. In France he was part of the 6th Port Headquarters unit.

During operation Dragoon he led a volunteer raid behind German lines to liberate the twin French port cities of Martigues and Port du Bouc, near the mouth of the Rhone River.

He was promoted to Captain shortly after arriving in North Africa in 1943 and then made Major in 1944. From North Africa, his next campaigns were along the coast of Italy and up into Southern France. It was there where he was awarded the Bronze Star during his operations in 1945 at age 26.

Nathan returned to the US by ship in November 1945 and began to plan his civilian life; eventually included positions in Shanghai, Pawtucket, and New York City. He traveled all over the country and the world.

He was the founder of InPak Systems, a unique patented point of sale packaging design. He also founded and was the CEO of Prudential Funds, Inc., later the Prudential Group, (American Stock Exchange), which was among the first diversified oil and gas drilling funds.

As a family man in the 1950s and 60’s Nathan was an active lay leader of the Second Congregational Church of Greenwich, Connecticut, which included Scout Troop sponsorships. For several decades he was a leading force for the preservation of the artistic heritage in his adopted hometown of Old Lyme, Connecticut. He co-founded the Art Recovery Committee of the Lyme Historical Society. In preparation for the Bicentennial in 1976, he secured donations of important art that were created by artists of the original Lyme Art Colony for the Florence Griswold Museum collection. He also secured land acquisitions for expanding art exhibitions, studio spaces for artists and teaching facilities one at the mouth of the Connecticut River in Old Lyme became a park along the Connecticut River.

Major Nathan Shippee was a member of the Greatest Generation who, like most others, probably never thought of himself as particularly out of the ordinary. His life’s achievements through the lens of history are extraordinary and worthy of a Hall of Fame induction, He was an inventor, holding several patents. He was an entrepreneur, founding two companies and taking one public. He was a visionary civic leader, and a person with unquenchable enthusiasm. His wife Patricia resides in Old Lyme, CT. and he is survived by his four children and their spouses, five grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.