This will be the last E-FORUM posting of
Cecilia King’s Extraordinary Senior Trip. She is on the way to San Francisco on the SS Lurline to catch a train to Los Angeles and then home to Arkansas, where she starts school at the University of Arkansas in the fall of 1941. There, she meets my father,
gets married in April of 1942, and the rest is history.

 

If you want to follow the next four years, get the book A WWII Romance, which
follows the life of a young couple (who happen to be my parents) through WWII with hundreds of letters, mainly written from my dad to my mother during the times they were apart 1942-1945. It is available form
Amazon in either Kindle or paperback.
Click here.

 

 

 

Beginning on November 1, 2024, which is the date of my mother’s first letter from her Hawaii trip 84 years ago, I am serializing day by day, the book,
Cecilia
King’s Extraordinary Senior Trip, which you can obtain from Amazon in either Kindle or paperback.  

I hope you enjoy the upcoming nine-months in Hawaii 1940-41. You can order the entire book from Amazon in either paperback or Kindle format,
click
here.

 

 

 

 

 

Figure
86 – Letter from Jimmie Starns (Cecilia’s Scrapbook)

The letter above was from Jimmie Starns, one of the Bachelors Cecilia dated. He went on to serve on the USS Missouri and was on board at the Japanese surrender ceremony.

 

James (“Jimmie) Starns (1921 – 2016)

Jimmie Starnes grew up in Decatur, Georgia. His father was a travelling salesman. By the time he started school he was living in Atlanta. Even though Starnes grew up in the
Depression he remembers his family as being pretty well off. He attended high school in Decatur and then attended Emory College. After his second year of college, Starnes was working at the local movie theater. One of his friends who worked with him told Starnes
that he was joining the Navy. His friend joining the Navy convinced Starnes to do the same. Starnes was sent to Guantanamo Bay for training. After spending time at Guantanamo they were sent back to New York City. They would attend school five days a week,
if they had passing grades for the week they were allowed to go into New York. When they graduated in November of 1940 they were commissioned as ensigns. They had the choice of going active duty or to take some time off.

Starnes was assigned to the USS Boise. In January of 1941 Starnes was assigned to the Pacific fleet. They stayed in Pearl Harbor until November 1941. They had two fleets called
a starboard and a port fleet. They would rotate deployments to sea; the starboard being the sea bound fleet and the port fleet being the fleet that got to stay in Pearl Harbor. Most of the training that Starnes and the men received was geared towards repelling
a Japanese attack.

In November of 1941 they were assigned to take a convoy to China. On the 18th of November Starnes and the USS Boise set sail for Manila. They arrived in Manila on December
5th, 1941. Starnes was in the Philippines when Pearl Harbor was attacked. On his way up to the bridge to get a cup of coffee Starnes found out that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. They were immediately in a state of war. They were told to stay in the immediate
area for a while, which was the Philippines.^[1]

 

Aug 31, 2015

JIM STARNES

Age: 94

Residence: Stone Mountain

Jim Starnes has enjoyed a long and happy life, but he still considers Sept. 2, 1945, “the most incredible day of my life.”

That’s the day the longtime Atlanta resident helped organize the surrender of Japan aboard the USS Missouri and greeted the Japanese surrender party as they boarded the ship.
After nearly four years of American involvement, the formal occasion sealed the end of World War II – and remains indelibly etched in Starnes’ memory.

“We thought, well, this is going to be a celebration. We’ll get out our swords and polish them up and get in our white uniforms, really make a day of this. But then General (Douglas)
MacArthur said no, we fought them in our undressed khaki uniforms and we’ll accept their surrender the same way.”

For Starnes, it was the end of a long and circuitous journey after he enlisted in the Navy as a 19-year-old. Born in Little Rock, Ark., Starnes lived in St. Louis and Des Moines,
Iowa, before moving to Atlanta at the age of 9 and graduating from Decatur’s Boys High School. After two years at Emory University, he joined the Navy in June 1940 and went to officers’ training.

“I’m sure there was some patriotism involved, but mainly it was youthful excitement. Join the Navy and see the world.”

That he did, in a short amount of time.

After serving brief stints aboard the USS Illinois and USS Wyoming, he was assigned to the USS Boise in December 1940 as assistant navigator. After a couple of months in Long
Beach, Calif., the crew was sent to Pearl Harbor in January 1941 and began making preparations to repel a Japanese attack.

But, he said, everyone was convinced the Japanese would never attack Hawaii.

Starnes trained with the fleet at Pearl Harbor until mid-November when the USS Boise was assigned to take a convoy of merchant ships to China. They arrived in Manila on Dec.
5. Two days later, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

“It wasn’t until Christmas Eve that some of us had the occasion to go ashore in the East Indies and met some pilots who had flown down from Pearl Harbor. They told us all about
the gory details.”

Over the next two-plus years, Starnes made his way around the globe, starting in India and continuing through San Francisco and then back to Pearl Harbor. The Boise’s next mission
in July 1942 was to sail to Midway Island and be a decoy to distract the Japanese fleet from the American ships preparing to invade Guadalcanal. Asked how he felt the war effort was going at that point, Starnes didn’t mince words.

“We were getting our ass beat. It was obvious. Guadalcanal was the turning point. Until that point, from Pearl Harbor until 1942, it was very evident that we weren’t winning.”

Starnes was involved in his first major battle in October of that year between Savo Island and Cape Esperance as enemy ships closed in to about 6,000 yards. The Boise’s first
belly-to-belly warfare lasted about 15 minutes, and while it had delivered its share of damage, it had been hit by a torpedo on the forward bow and was leaking. The captain made the decision to withdraw from the engagement and try to save the ship. Starnes
estimated there were 300 killed or injured on board the Boise.

The ailing ship limped out of the combat zone, through the Panama Canal and on to Philadelphia for repairs.

That’s when Starnes’ European theater experience began. The Boise was sent to the Mediterranean in spring of 1943, where it transported troops and helped prepare for the Allied
invasion of Sicily. At that time, Starnes was promoted to navigator. When the invasion was complete, his orders were to report to San Francisco again, which he did aboard a Dutch freighter.

Then he ended up in, of all places, Rhode Island, heading a navigation school for the crews of new ships. He was on a 30-day leave when he heard the details about D-Day in June
1944. Having married a year earlier and having a small child by that point, Starnes was content to ride out the war in Newport.

“I felt like I had done all I could do to fight the war and I was happy to be ashore.”

Not so fast. A date with history awaited him.

His new assignment was as navigator of the USS Missouri, which left New York and arrived in Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve 1944 to join the Pacific fleet. Having been promoted
from lieutenant to lieutenant commander, Starnes’ next trip was to Iwo Jima, then to Okinawa, as the Missouri and its fellow U.S. ships blasted the coast in preparation for an invasion.

Starnes said he had several close calls, such as the time a Japanese kamikaze attack damaged the ship’s stern. Another time, while Starnes was in the navigation quarters, a Japanese
shell hit directly below him in the communications quarters, completely destroying it.

After the U.S. dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the Japanese made preparations to surrender. After opting to hold the ceremony aboard the Missouri,
a decision was made to bring an enemy pilot aboard the American ship so he could help the captain avoid minefields in Tokyo Bay. Starnes said the young pilot, who spoke impeccable English, used his cabin overnight.

“I asked him, ‘You think there’s going to be any poor losers who still want to keep fighting?’ And he said, ‘No, when the emperor said it’s over, it’s over.’ … Almost overnight
they changed from being a deadly enemy to being a friend. That was a revelation to me of human nature. War is hell, but neighborly love is more powerful.”

The next morning, Starnes was busy prepping for the ceremony and handling the final details as the American commanders came aboard, followed by the Japanese contingent. Everything
went exactly as planned. After less than 30 minutes of signatures and salutes, it was all over.

Seventy years later, Starnes recalled it like it was yesterday.

“Indescribable. No. 1, I was here. And No. 2, we had won a war.”

After the war: Starnes enrolled at Emory Law School at night and began building a real estate business. Toward the end of his corporate career, he accepted an assignment as chairman,
president and CEO of the real estate subsidiary of North Carolina National Bank, which is now Bank of America.^[2]

James Louis Starnes Obituary

February 12, 1921 – March 8, 2016
James Louis Starnes died peacefully Tuesday night, March 8th, less than a month after his 95th birthday. He touched the lives of many people, and was a loving son, a naval officer, an entrepreneur, a successful businessman,
a great "Daddy" to all his children, and a valued member of society. A primary school teacher left an indelible impression on him when she told the class that she wished she had a hundred Jimmie Starnes. That and the strength and encouragement of his mother
propelled him to an unshakable belief in himself. He was an eagle scout, a national merit scholar, a voracious reader and a life long student with many and varied interests. He lived a full life, traveled the world, spoke to thousands while being a father
to seven children, and a mentor and roll model to countless others.

Born February 12, 1921, in Little Rock Arkansas to James Lucius Starnes and Maude Ellen White Starnes, the family soon moved home to Georgia. Jim, the second
of three children, grew up in Decatur. He had a little brother, Leslie who died of polio when only six years old. The family lived on Ponce de Leon Avenue for many years. He attended school there, graduating in 1939 from Decatur Boys High School, and then
beginning his college education at Emory University.

He interrupted his education by enlisting in the US Navy at age 19 when he was offered a chance to attend officer training school in Annapolis, Maryland.
His naval career began after graduating with a group called the 90-day wonders, a select group of young men chosen to take accelerated training in hopes of building up the officer corps quickly in case of hostilities. He was commissioned an officer in the
US Navy and ordered to Pearl Harbor to serve onboard the USS Boise. Less than a year later his ship, headed to the Philippines unknowingly passed south of a Japanese fleet on its way to attack Pearl Harbor. After the attack, the family could not receive word
regarding his safety. He would not be able to reach them for several months. Lt. Commander Starnes saw extensive combat at Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal. Jim’s beloved sister Frances also joined the Navy as a nurse and was stationed in San Diego, California. His
parents displayed a blue ribbon in their front window with two stars indicating two soldiers were serving from that house.

On January 15th, 1943, Jim married his childhood sweetheart, Rose Evelyn Courtenay while on leave from the USS Boise.

He served as ship’s navigator on board the Boise, and later in the war on the USS Missouri. By tradition the ship’s navigator is the officer of the deck
when the ship is in a foreign port. This put the responsibility of hosting the surrender ceremonies on him. He hand picked the tallest crew members to form the phalanx of sailors the visitors would be obliged to walk through. He procured the table upon which
the surrender documents would be signed, from the mess hall, and had it covered with a green tablecloth. Under orders from General MacArthur to start and end on time the young officer did his duty and all watched as the historic ceremony concluded with a majestic
flyover, filing the sky with hundreds of allied planes.

He came home from the war to a wife and baby daughter and lived with Rosie’s parents, John and Cora Courtenay on the Lawrenceville Highway. During this time
he finished his college education on the GI Bill graduating from Emory University with a Law degree. He started his professional career in real estate and mortgage banking after a short stint at a brokerage firm. On December 15, 1949 he was working across
the street from the Lowes Grand Theater when "Gone with the Wind" had it’s premier. In 1952 he started his own company with long time friend Frank Roberts. Together for the next ten years they provided home mortgages for the booming southeastern region centered
in Atlanta. James Starnes was President of the Atlanta Real Estate Board and the first recipient of the MAI designation among the mortgage bankers association.

The family lived on Lullwater Road in Druid Hills where he and Rose Evelyn raised four children. They were active members of the Glenn Memorial Methodist
Church with Jim holding the position of treasurer and chairman of the board. Rose Evelyn was an accomplished artist, supportive and loving wife, and was always active in the lives of her four children, her church and the Druid Hills Community. Rosie died of
cancer in 1960 at the age of 38.

In 1961 Jim married the former Betty Ruth Hughen of Dallas, Texas and adopted her three children as his own to create a large blended family. From 1962 to
1974 he was the CEO of Phipps Harrington Corporation, Senior Vice President of Phipps Land Company from 1974 to 1976. He and Betty then moved to Charlotte N.C. where he served as chairman of the board and president of the NCNB Mortgage Corporation. Memberships
included, Atlanta Board of Realtors (President, 1960, 1961 the last president to serve two terms), Mortgage Bankers Association (past governor), American Institute Real Estate Appraisers, Certified Mortgage Bankers and Mortgage Bankers Association. In 1980
Jim followed Betty into her work with the direct marketing, health and wellness company, Nikken. With Betty’s positive outlook, love of people, and great marketing sense, she helped them build a Diamond distributorship. Jim continued actively running and building
their business until the end of his life, never thinking of retirement. He and Betty were happily married and in love for fifty years until she died at their home in Park Springs Community in Stone Mountain, in 2011.

Jim’s direct family line extends back to the early 1800’s in Eastern Georgia. Seaborn White, his great grandfather was killed at Champion Hill in the Civil
War. His mother Maude grew up in a house in Atlanta across the street from the State capitol where Jimmy and his sister Frances played as children.

Predeceased by his parents, his siblings, two wives, a child and a grandchild, Jim is survived by six of his seven children: Courtenay Starnes (Warren) Budd,
of Newnan, Bonnie Starnes (Deceased), of San Francisco, Leslie Starnes (Dacia), of Marietta, John Starnes (Teresa), of Marietta, Mark Starnes (Forrest), of Roswell, Teresa Starnes Campbell (Jeff), of Duluth, Randy Starnes, (Susan), of Los Angeles, California.
Jim also leaves behind 15 grandchildren, 16 great grandchildren and one great, great granddaughter, named Rosie.

James Starnes had a long full life and was fortunate to have two wonderful marriages. His morning ritual included giving thanks to God and declaring that
he was happy, healthy and in love. He claimed that he wasn’t born a gentleman, but worked very hard to become one. His family, friends, and caregivers loved him and he was happy and active riding around on his electric scooter to visit friends until his last
day. He closed his eyes, let out a breath, and passed gently out of this life. A gentle end for a true Southern gentleman.

 

 

 

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