Just in time for Memorial Day weekend, the Bell County Historical Society Museum has opened an exhibit about one of Pineville's most famous native sons. John Madison Hoskins, born in 1898, grew up to be one of the shining stars of the United States Navy, and the subject of a major Hollywood movie which had its Kentucky premiere at the Bell Theater during the Mountain Laurel Festival 41 years ago.

After graduating from Pineville High School, Hoskins was appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1917, and soon became a naval aviator. He served on the U.S.S. Memphis when Charles Lindbergh and his airplane The Spirit of St .Louis returned to the U.S. after their record-breaking flight across the Atlantic in 1927, and led the search for lost female aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart 10 years later.

But it was as a war hero that Hoskins really shone. During the beginning of World War II he patrolled the Atlantic, and then in September of 1944 he was ordered to command the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Princeton in the Pacific theater of the war. Hoskins was aboard the U.S.S Princeton during the Battle of Leyte Bay, when the Japanese sank her on October 24, 1944. Although ordered to leave, Hoskins stayed with his ship to help fight the fires overtaking it. As a result, he lost his right leg, thereby earning the nickname, “The Peg-Legged Admiral.” Hoskins was awarded the Purple Heart and the Navy Cross in recognition of his bravery that day.

Hoskins went on to serve with distinction during the Korean War, and retired from the Navy in 1957. But two years before retirement, in 1955, he took a break from his demanding duties to visit his hometown of Pineville during the Mountain Laurel Festival. The reason? The Kentucky premiere of a movie about his time on the Pacific, “The Eternal Sea.” Starring Sterling Hayden, Alexis Smith and Dean Jagger, the film was billed as “a story of love and human conflict as great as the relentless ocean.”

Museum director Jonathan Smallwood explains that the majority of the material in the exhibit, chiefly old photographs and text, was donated to the museum by a descendent of Admiral Hoskins, James R. Gragg, Jr.

“The museum had been after me for years [to donate], but I kept putting it off,” Gragg said when asked about the collection.

Although his great-uncle died more than 40 years ago, Gragg remembers him well and is pleased that his great-uncle is being remembered this Memorial Day.

The exhibit will be up through the summer. The Bell County Historical Society Museum, located on 20th Street in Middlesboro, is open Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Admission is free, although donations are welcomed.

Martha E. Wiley is a Correspondent for the Daily News. She can be reached via e-mail at mwiley@middlesborodailynews.com.