Claude C. Bloch, a native of Butler County, attended public schools and Ogden College in Bowling Green, graduated from Annapolis in 1899, and served in a naval career that spanned the Spanish-American War and World Wars I and II. He assumed command of USS Plattsburg in 1918 and received the Navy Cross for hazardous transporting of troops and supplies to Europe. His duties included Commander, Mine Force, Pacific Fleet; Chief of Staff to Commander, Battleship Divisions; and Chief of Bureau of Ordnance in the 1920s, Commander in Chief, U. S. Fleet, from 1938 to 1940, and Commandant of 14th Naval Dist. at Pearl Harbor from 1940 to 1942. As chairman of the Navy Board for industrial production awards, he was given the Legion of Merit, and he retired in 1945.