Fenner Albert Chace Jr. was born in Fall River, Massachusetts.
[1]: 102–103 [2] After the start of World War II, he worked as a civilian for the Army Air Force oceanographic group, and later commissioned as an officer.
[1]: 101 He worked to produce cloth survival charts to be used by aviators lost at sea.
[1]: 105 After the war, he succeeded Waldo L. Schmitt at the United States National Museum.
He was "one of the most influential carcinologists of the 20th century", and named 200 taxa in the Decapoda and Stomatopoda, most of them shrimp.