(Aug 12, 2025)
Wally spent almost 29 years in the Navy including 4 at the Naval Academy. He planned to spend the minimum time at sea (2 years) required for naval personnel and then obtain a Master’s degree in naval architecture (as his father did). After 3 years on a destroyer (with long hours and sometimes heavy seas, where hanging on to the bounding ship was sometimes challenging), he applied to and graduated from the Webb Institute for his Master’s degree.
Then he was assigned to the New York Naval Shipyard as a ship superintendent for construction of a new class of ships for carrying Marines and amphibious boats. Then he became engineer officer of a World War II cargo ship (a “tramp steamer” that required a lot of maintenance). After that, he spent 3 years each in New York City and in Washington DC, supervising future naval ship design by private firms. Then he was assigned supervisor of shipbuilding for the San Francisco area (similar to what his father had done in the Los Angeles area years earlier). He managed an office with 60 people administering naval repair contracts with private shipyards, and enjoyed exploring the San Francisco Bay Area.
Then he was assigned to Cambodia for 1 year, during which the Cooper-Church Amendment said Americans were not to advise host governments in fighting a war, which left him little purpose there. Much of his time there was spent in a small Cambodia Naval shipyard trying to present visibility and motivation to the Cambodian Navy. He received a daily list of spare parts which he was asked to transfer to another Cambodian officer. When he asked why they did not transfer this list directly, he was told that the 2 Cambodian officers were not on speaking terms and if either of them tried to speak to the other, he would lose face.