D. Clarke Evans Photographer

Lev Hunt

Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Navy
1942-1967

Ensign Lev Hunt
New York, NY, 1943

My job was if we were hit by bombs or shells, I was in charge of fixing it.

I was born in Lometa, Texas in 1925. My dad was a conductor for the Santa Fe Railroad and he had the route that ran through Lometa. That’s where he met my mother. I was in high school in Cleburne, Texas when the war broke out. I joined the Navy in 1942 and took NROTC at Tulane and studied Naval maneuvers for one year.

I went to pre-midshipman’s school, midshipman’s school, then to destroyer school and was assigned to the USS McCord. They sent me to damage control school in 1944 for a week, and that made me an expert. I was a damage control officer for the McCord. My job was if we were hit by bombs or shells, I was in charge of fixing it. We didn’t get hit, thank goodness. We went to Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Korea. The McCord was part of Task Force 58. It was a tremendous striking force. We had 17 destroyers in a circle around four aircraft carriers. The Japanese submarines were afraid of destroyers. The aircraft carriers were their big target.

We were in a big storm at sea in June, 1945. We were maneuvering off of Okinawa and there was a typhoon headed straight for us. Our esteemed commander, Bill Halsey, changed course and headed straight for the typhoon. It knocked the daylights out of us and did more damage than the Japanese had all during the war.

After the war, President Truman imposed an embargo on fuel to Japan, and the Japanese ships didn’t have enough fuel to get home. MacArthur said we had to give them some, but their hoses and couplings were different sizes and the end result was fuel oil all over the decks of both ships. It took months to clean it up. We gave them enough fuel to get back.

After the war ended, I was on a mail ship running mail down the China coast. The men got in a lot of fights with the Chinese. The admiral issued an order that said if you get in a fight with the Chinese, you’d get a general court martial. That’s where I came in. I was a legal officer for the Navy and they had me trying general courts martial. I did that for a year.

My best day in the Navy was when I got out. My worst day was Christmas of 1946 in Shanghai, China. The crew had smuggled liquor and beer aboard. They wanted to celebrate Christmas and were talking about mutiny to take over the ship and have a party. The captain called for help and they sent over a boarding party with machine guns and rifles.

Since I had been a legal officer in the Navy, I decided I would go to law school when I got out. I went to the University of Texas and got a B.A. initially, and then a law degree in 1950. I went to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Houston for two years. I worked for the Kelberg, Mobley Law Firm in Corpus Christi for 30 years, then I formed my own firm called Hunt, Hermansen, McKibben & Barger. We did trial work representing insurance companies.

I stayed in the reserves after the war for 21 years and retired from the Navy. They taught me a lot of things and headed me toward law work. My job in the reserves was in JAG. I got married in 1953 to a wonderful girl named Frances from Canada. We were married 57 years. We had three kids. Family was the best thing that ever happened to me. {09-05-2019 • Corpus Christi, TX}