Lore of the corps memorial RADM Joseph L. Howard, SC, USN - Ret

Navy Supply Corps Newsletter, Jan-Feb, 2004 by Frank Allston

Rear Admiral Joseph Leon Howard, who compiled an outstanding 32-year Navy Supply Corps career, died of cancer at San Diego on June 7, 2003. His final tour of duty was as commanding officer of the Navy Supply Center, Charleston, S.C., but he is best remembered for his two special duty tours with Admiral Arleigh Burke, a heroic figure during World War II.

As a captain, Joe Howard served as special assistant when Burke became chief of naval operations. Howard was recognized as a successful author and dedicated San Diego community leader following his retirement in 1972.

Joseph Howard was born at New Haven, Conn., in December 1917, but at the age of two, he moved with his family to San Diego, Calif., a city he proudly considered his hometown for the balance of his 85 years. He entered San Diego State College in 1935, but transferred north to the University of California in Berkeley in 1938 for his junior and senior years. A graduate of the Class of 1940 with an A.B. degree in economics, young Joe Howard accepted employment with Consolidated Aircraft Company, back in San Diego. At the time, war clouds were gathering, so he applied for an appointment as an officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve. He was commissioned a Supply Corps ensign in December 1940, four days short of his 23rd birthday.

America's peacetime military leaders continued to be concerned about possible war in the Pacific and urged intensifying preparations for the anticipated conflict, but public opinion and many political leaders were striving vigorously to avoid the war that had been ignited on both the European and Asian continents.

As modest mobilization of the Navy and Army began to gather momentum, ENS Howard was called to active duty in March 1941. He was ordered to duty under instruction at the Navy Finance and Supply School (NF&SS) at Philadelphia, which he successfully completed the following June. Upon graduation from NF&SS, ENS Howard reported in July 1941 as disbursing officer of Destroyer Division 80 and was assigned to USS Chew (DD 106), then in dry dock at the Pearl Harbor Naval Station for overhaul. Duty in the peacetime Navy was routine, but things changed dramatically on 7 December.

When Joe Howard joined the Navy in 1940, it was still a peacetime organization, but the young Howard was convinced that the United States would soon be at war. Despite his prescience, ENS Howard had a rude awakening to war on Dec. 7, 1941, barely six months out of NF&SS, on what Honolulu newspapers and radio stations were forecasting to be a typically beautiful day for relaxing throughout the Hawaiian Islands, ENS Howard had awakened early on the dry-docked Chew, had breakfast and was prepared to meet his NF&SS classmate, ENS Verdi D. Sederstrom, Assistant Supply Officer of the battleship USS Oklahoma (BB 37) tied up on Battleship Row, for a round of golf. The Imperial Japanese Navy put an abrupt end to their plans when, just before 0800, its carrier-borne planes assaulted the battleships of the Pacific Fleet in the narrow Hawaiian anchorage, as well as other nearby U.S. combatant ships, shore facilities and Navy and Army Air Corps airfields.

When the air attack commenced, ENS Howard rushed to his temporary office, a corrugated shack on an adjacent pier. He and two enlisted men quickly began treating casualties from the sunken and badly damaged ships as best they could. Even though they lacked proper equipment and medications, the three carefully rinsed and cleaned off the badly burned and oil-covered survivors who began arriving on the pier. Several days later, Howard learned that Sederstrom was missing and presumed killed in action.

Joe Howard was promoted to lieutenant, junior grade, and ordered in June 1942 as supply, commissary and disbursing officer, Naval Section Base at Port Angeles, Wash., where he was assigned duty as boarding officer to determine supply needs of all ships entering the harbor. Howard recalled another unusual experience in which the skipper of an incoming ship assumed that LTJG Howard was a harbor pilot. The master called him to the bridge and started bombarding him with nautical questions. He also kept up a line of chatter that prevented the Supply Corps officer from identifying himself.

The young officer bad boarded a sufficient number of incoming ships to be aware of treacherous characteristics of the harbor and tried to warn the master, who ignored him and maintained course and speed, eventually crashing into the fueling pier. Later in the wardroom, the captain spotted LTJG Howard's Supply Corps insignia and stormed out in a rage, claiming that he had been misled. That experience convinced Joe always to assure that skippers of the many other incoming ships at Port Angeles he met in the future were made immediately aware of his rank and corps.

Howard augmented into the Navy in June 1942 and was promoted to lieutenant.

As the United States gained the initiative and began the dramatic surge across the Pacific Ocean, advance bases were established and domestic facilities were closed. LT Howard was appointed settlement officer for abandoned bases in the states of Washington and Oregon, to settle all accounts, to reconcile all documents and to turn facilities over to caretaker commands. He then reported in July 1944 as staff supply officer, 4th Naval Construction Brigade at Manus Island in the Admiralties, 3,500 miles west of Pearl Harbor.