That's right. Had been practicing law, just started practicing law in
Atlanta. Then I got fed up with cable sensor work in New York, and I
requested combat duty. They sent me to the first midshipman's school at
Northwestern University about the middle of '42. In that same class was
Robert Taft, Jr. After I finished midshipman's school, they tried to
teach us the fundamentals that you learn in the Naval Academy in four
years in sixty or ninety days, I've forgotten. Then they assigned me to
a ship that was under construction in California, the USS Tryon. It was
a disguised hospital ship. The Japanese paid no attention to the Geneva
Convention, so while it was a hospital ship, we
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heavily armed for an auxiliary and could fight, or pretended to, and
auxiliaries did. They really weren't equipped for much battle, but they
did have guns and things of that nature. I served as a division officer
on her, and then was transferred from that to New Zealand, where I
became aide to Commodore Jolly, Flag Secretary down there, afterwards
Transportation Officer in New Zealand. After I had been in the South
Pacific for twenty-two and a half months, they sent me home for twenty
days leave, as I recall, in a precommissioning detail at Rhode Island,
New York. Afterwards, I was made Prospective Executive Officer on an
attack transport, APA 97. When the ship
[Interruption.] was commissioned, we acted as auxiliary training ship afloat for
the Atlantic Fleet at Newport, Rhode Island, for about sixty days. We'd
take details out for a week and run them through the routine that
similar auxiliaries and attack transports experienced, and let them
stand watches along side our men. I went to the South Pacific then and
was engaged in the campaign for the Philippines, and I participated in
landing the first cavalry division in Tokyo Bay, while McArthur was
dictating the surrender ceremonies. Then after the war was over, I had
far more points than I needed to be demobilized, so I came back and was
placed on inactive duty about November, '45. I served a total of 52
months. Went in as an ensign and came out as a lieutenant commander.