John Gurley

My Story, John Gurley

I was born April 22, 1918 in Denver, Colorado, the first child born to Walter and Lillian Gurley. Among the vague early recollections of my childhood days, was a trip we took in about 1924, to Chicago in dad's new 1924 Chevrolet touring, complete with ising glass curtains. The luggage was carried on the running boards and a rack on the back. We took the Lincoln Highway, [now I76 and I80] it took us about a week to get there. Traveling on roads that are the same as the section roads of eastern Colorado today. In some areas they were muddy and with ruts, making travel rather slow. The return trip took about the same time and conditions.

I attended the following schools, Steele, Corona [Dora Moore], Asbury, Grant, Gove Jr. High, then graduated East High in June 1937. After working for the Ford Optical Co. for 2 years, I joined the US Navy in June 1939. Boot camp was in San Diego, CA and transferred to the Naval Air Station at North Island, where I was to spend the next 4 plus years. A few months after I arrived there, I met my future bride, Carlynn Barnes. We were married Sept 8, 1940, in a bouganville arbor, in San Diego. Our minister was Carlynn's grandfather.

On August 28th, 1941, our daughter Patricia Jean was born. In December 1942, was transferred to a group that was deploying to New Caledonia. Ten months later I was transferred to another unit on Guadalcanal for the next 8 months. Again, I was stationed at North Island and in the same job that I had before going overseas. Our son, Jack was born Jan. 12, 1947, at the dispensary at North Island during this tour of duty.

In May 1948, I was transferred to air group that was based at Alameda Naval Air Station. This was quite a change of duty for me, as the work that I had been doing was repair work. So a tour of sea duty was quite a change. In Dec. 1948, we left for a [goodwill] tour of the far eastern Pacific. Some of the ports that we visited were Hawaii, Guam, Singapore, Philippines, Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea. Several of these we made more than once. In Japan we saw some of the damage that was the results of the bombing during the war. We returned 7 months later. The next months [years] were spent making several more trips during the Korean war. On our last trip, we left the line the day that the Armistice was signed, and started our return trip to the states.

In June 1959, I retired from the U.S. NAVY after serving 20 years. We moved the family to Denver. I went into outside sales work, which I enjoyed. Pat was married to Carlos Arnold in 1961. Jack was married in 1965. Pat has 4 children, and Jack has 2. We now have 7 grandchildren, 11 great grandchildren, and 1 in the oven.