Remembering US Navy Lt. Commander Joe T. Jett

As National Military Appreciation Month comes to a close, I want to recognize and honor a special family member who served in WWII. Joseph Taylor Jett, my father’s youngest brother, was only sixteen when Pearl Harbor was attacked, but shortly thereafter he joined the State Guard while still in high school. The National Guard was called into active duty to support the depleted US Army immediately after the attack, and then a new organization called the State Guard or Home Guard was formed to recruit young men not yet eligible for the draft.

Joe was one of the many young men who served as an Army Trainee while completing his high school education. As he considered his post high school options, he learned about a Navy aviation program from his older brother Sam, a private pilot. Interested candidates had to apply before turning eighteen to avoid the draft, so Joe and ten of his classmates decided to go this route. However, only four including Joe passed the rigorous six-hour aptitude test.

Soon after graduating from Everett High School in 1943, he received orders to report for active duty to the Navy V-7, V-12 program at Howard College in Birmingham, Alabama. Each program prepared young men for different military careers. The V-7 students spent two semesters at Howard followed by a semester at pre-flight school and then a semester at flight school, while the V-12 students spent four semesters at Howard and then six months at midshipmen school. The classes for both programs were challenging and included a military component similar to basic training. There were strong incentives for these students to maintain passing grades as bad grades meant they would be ‘washed out’ and sent to boot camp as an ordinary seaman.

Joe decided to follow the V-12 program and after four semesters, he went to Notre Dame University Midshipmen School, graduating in June 1945. Next he attended Fort Schuyler Maritime Academy on Long Island Sound in New York. Then the summer after the atomic bomb was dropped, his entire class received orders to locations on various ships all over the world.

His first assignment was on a large seaplane tender AV-11 in the Pacific.  To get there, he flew on a commercial airline from New York to San Francisco and boarded “Flying Arrow” a new liberty ship on its maiden voyage to Okinawa. The next destination was Shanghai aboard the Norton Sound another AV-11 which was the fourth Allied war ship to enter those waters after WWII. This vessel eventually docked on the Whangpoo River and provided much needed support, transportation and supplies to the crews of other seaplanes. Just before Christmas, his ship was rotated again back to Okinawa which was now the home base and supply center for the US Seventh Fleet and Army of the Pacific. Their task there was to help put Japan back together again.

One of his fondest Navy memories was on New Year’s Eve in 1945 in the Okinawa harbor where more than fifty ships put on a huge fireworks display. The ships needed to dispose of all their pyrotechnics and other types of suspended star shells so it was one bright and noisy spectacle. Joe vividly remembered this occasion seventy-two years later – the excitement of the flashing, smoky skies that welcomed the New Year and acknowledged their hard fought victories.

In January, his ship was on the move again, this time to Yokohoma, Japan, where they reestablished a permanent seaplane base. He recounted the terrible conditions of the Japanese roads and railroads and their challenging work helping to rebuild the infrastructure. After March, they began another journey to return their ship to Norfolk, Virginia, stopping first at Pearl Harbor then proceeding through the Panama Canal. Once Joe reached Norfolk, he separated from active duty but was still in the Navy Reserve.

During the next several years he completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Tennessee and began a long and successful business career throughout the south. He married, had two sons and remained in the Navy Reserve. During the Korean War, he was called back into the Reserve for a short stint and continued to serve as Lt. Commander until 1964.

Joe Jett’s story is significant for many reasons. As one of the two remaining Jett siblings, he and his sister Marion have been a valuable source of Jett family history and stories. I have talked with him numerous times to confirm details and hear new family revelations. Plus, I conducted an oral interview with him in October 2015 when our family gathered in the Smoky Mountains to celebrate my mother who had recently died just six months shy of her 100th birthday.

I am grateful that he shared so many humorous recollections of his large family and that I got to know him over the years. Plus he became an important father figure as my dad had died when I was only twenty-one. But most importantly I am grateful that four days after his 92nd birthday, he had sent me a package with an extensive account of his ‘Naval History’ along with photographs. I had no idea about the extent of his military service and even his family was unaware of some of these details. I was eager to talk with him about the materials and his experiences, but that never happened. Unexpectedly he died eight days later so those pages he sent me were his final contributions to Jett family story.

Joe, the baby of his large Jett family was a fine human being. He loved his country, he loved his family, and he was a born salesman. He never met a stranger and his quick wit and intelligence were enjoyed by all. Thank you, Uncle Joe for sharing your WWII story. With love, respect and gratitude, I salute you for your service.