More on Jack's Naval Service Including Security Work

A letter I found in Jack's papers indicates that on March 20, 1945 he successfully completed a correspondence course on Communications with a mark of 3.83. (Germany surrendered on April 29. Japan did not surrender until Aug. 15, 1945).  However what is interesting about the letter is that at that time he was an officer in the Naval Reserve.  The letter was sent to Lt. John B. Leddy, S(E3) T, USNR, Naval Reserve Educational Center, Great Lakes, Illinois.  So, although it was a correspondence course, he took it at the center or at least received his mail at the center.  S(E3) is a USNR officer designation for Special Service, Special Engineering Duties, equivalent to EDO (Engineering Duty Only) Electrical.

I was wondering why Jack would be in the Naval Reserve and not in the regular Navy... he never mentioned this.  However, in recent years he had claimed that he had done secret work for the Navy.  It turns out that the Naval Reserve was very important in cryptographic work.   I recently found an interesting document online: "Silent Warriors: The Naval Security Group 1945-2005,"  According to this work, "of the more than 10,000 codebreakers who served in the U.S. Navy between 1941 and 1945, well over 90 percent were reservists. They played key roles in every aspect of what was then termed radio intelligence — interception, decryption, translation, and analysis — at sites around the world."  It is also mentioned that many of these reservists were not allowed to talk about their work and received no official recognition.  Jack insisted he was not allowed to talk about his work.  The document also says that these same reservists were kept on in this secret work during the period after WWII, i.e. during the Cold War.  My hypothesis is that Jack was in The Naval Security Group as a reservist doing security work from 1945 to sometime during the Cold War.  He could do this while maintaining a normal civilian life.  The document also states that:  "What operational work existed [during the period immediately after WWII]  was modest, and some was downright casual. Lacking proper drill sites and equipment, units organized “ham” radio efforts, monitoring frequencies (sometimes on Navy-supplied radios residing in reservists’ homes) and copying signals on frequencies assigned by CSA. For want of other options, the USNR allowed select members to conduct this classified work from home and send the results to Washington, DC, via registered mail.".

Jack's old friend Tom Nelson writes  "I am quite sure that after MIT he was sent on classified work to a Navy base in England and bases in various parts of the USA."  This looks like it was before the end of the war.

Jack's Patent 3,313,057

Jack patented some color code caps for knobs for electronic gear on April 11, 1967.  The application was made on Oct. 26, 1964.  I remember the knobs well.  We often played with these electronic knobs that were always around Jack's workroom.  The machines that were used to produce the knobs would extrude globs of plastic that we all thought really cool-looking and collected in the family garden for a while.  You can see the patent by clicking on this link:  3,313,057

Bowles Hall, University of California Berkeley

Jack was always proud of his membership in Bowles Hall.  He was listed as a senior there in the Blue and Gold Yearbook, class of 1946.  Jack said that he was elected president of Bowles Hall, and I remember once seeing a plaque there with his name on it to that effect.  His brother Don also went to Bowles Hall.  Jack had a picture of Bowles Hall hanging in his office.  He never graduated due, he says, to a bad case of dysentery, plus not being able to get credit from Berkeley for his studies at Harvard and MIT during the war.  Jack went on without BA in hand to have a satisfying career as an electronics manufacturer's representative, which makes him not much different from many contemporary computer CEOs.  Sometime in the 1980s he was invited back to Berkeley to give a talk about his career.  He saw that as a kind of vindication.  . 

Henry Longfellow School

Longfellow Elementary School, Pasadena,

 
Jack and Don attended Henry Longfellow School.   Check the link below for a picture from that time.

Henry Longfellow School, East Washington, Pasadena. 1926.
DATE: 10/22/1926
NOTES: Street view of Henry Longfellow School on East Washington. The school is a large, multistory building with a flagpole and trees on the lawn.
SOURCE: Harold A. Parker Studio Collection of Negatives
REPOSITORY: Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery

Leddy Ranch

Fire Sweeps Leddy Ranch.  [probably appeared in an L.A. paper sometime in the 1930s...clipping has no date or publication]

500 Acres of Timber Fall Before Flames, House Saved by Fighters

More than 500 acres of big timber, a saw mill and blacksmith shop of the Calaveras County ranch of Harold D. Leddy, Pasadena attorney were in smouldering ruins today in the wake of a forest fire.

At a loss estimated at more than $5,000, the fire swept over the ranch Sunday, eating through a stand of 3,000,000 feet of timber, Leddy learned today.  Back-firing saved the six-room ranch house and 50 acres of scrub land.

Leddy, who lives at 1175 Woodbury Road, said the ranch had been a hunting paradise.  It is near Railroad Flat, 10 miles from Calaveras Big Trees.


Jack always remembered time spent on the Leddy ranch with fondness as days in which he was a cowboy.  The family story is that Harold received the ranch in lieu of payment of attorney's fees.

Barnes and Murray Family Tombstone

Anthony Parone has also provided us with pictures of a Barnes and Murray family tombstone.  The second picture is of Anthony and his.Aunt Pat in the Cathedral Cemetery in Philadelphia.

What did his son (John Ford Barnes) do in New Orleans in the period before his death in 1846?

In a letter in a previous post Jack Leddy asked this question:  "What did his son (John Ford Barnes [son of Captain John Barnes]) do in New Orleans in the period before his death in 1846?"  We now know that answer to that.  He opened another hotel, and then another.  Anthony Parone, a fourth cousin also descended from John Ford Barnes, did the research on this. Here are two notices, one of the new Commercial Hotel in 1844, and one of the sale of another hotel, Notre Dame Hotel, upon the death of John Ford Barnes.  Anthony also provided a copy of his death certificate.   

"Mr. John F. Barnes has taken the “Commercial Hotel,” corner of Girod and New Levee streets which he opened last evening as a house of entertainment.  Mr Barnes knows how to do the thing in the handsome way, and he intends to make his terms reasonable.”  11/1/1844 Times-Picayune, New Orleans

":To Hotel and Tavern Keepers.  For Sale - A Bargain - The lease of the well known Notre Dame Hotel with the commodious Bar Room Fixtures and Household and Kitchen Furniture, with or without four House Servants.  For particulars apply on the premises, corner of Notre Dame and Tchoupatoulus Streets my 28 St."  May 30, 1847  Times Picayune

John Ford Barnes death certificate

Incidentally, two years later the Commercial Hotel was a stopping point for Californians heading to the gold rush.  “They are all stopping, previous to their departure, at the Commercial Hotel, corner of Girod and New Levee streets.”  This taken from "California Bound" S. F. Genealogy  New York Herald, New York, New York, Feb. 22, 1849.