Robert P. "Bob" Patterson Sr. was a lawyer; a judge of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York from May 1930 to March 1939; a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from March 1939 to July 1940; U.S. under secretary of war from December 1940 to September 1945; U.S. secretary of war from September 1945 to July 1947; and a New York city attorney from 1947 until his death on 22 January 1952.