Bob Hemm of Pelham to Receive The Spanish “Cross of Naval Merit”

Longtime Pelham Manor resident Bob Hemm will trek down to Washington, D.C. in September to receive the “Cross of Naval Merit,” awarded by a proclamation from the King of Spain on September 7th, 2021 at the Spanish Embassy in Washington D.C. He is the only American to ever receive the very prestigious “Cross of Naval Merit.”

Bob Hemm now 92, has spent his whole life as an explorer. He is on record as saying he was born to be one.

He has numerous accomplishments over the years many involving the prestigious “Explorers Club,” where he is now a very active “Fellow,” are well documented in his memoir, “The Life of an Explorer.”

Born in 1929, Bob pulled himself up literally by his bootstraps through his education that started at New Rochelle High School. However Bob received a scholarship to St. Bernard School in Gladstone, N.J. where he played Right End for the football team in 1944 and the graduated.

Bob Hemm graduated from Virginia Tech via Bluefield College in Virginia with a degree in Engineering.

Besides his exploration feats, Bob was a pilot, a parachuter, an under water diver, a skier, a mountain climber, an avid Tennis player, Platform Tennis player, golfer, and even organized volleyball games at his Pelham home.

His hugely successful business career enabled him to cross the globe and accomplish his exploration goals perhaps culminating in his accomplishment of planning, “The Magellan Flag Expedition” to search for the lost ship “the Santiago.”

Bob also spearheaded an Easter Island expedition that included use of his Parachute plane.

Perhaps his most remarkable accomplishment has to be his deep diver one man submarine adventure. Diving well below 1200 ft.

After the death of his college sweatheart and wife Jean, with whom he had 3 children, he remarried Angela Susan Anton who will accompany Bob to D.C. to receive the Cross of Naval Merit.