Before going into politics, North Dakota’s longest-serving governor was battle-tested in the U.S. Navy during World War II. William Guy was elected governor in 1960, 1962, 1964 and 1968, for a total of 12 years. His first two elections were for two-year terms, and the last two were for four-year terms. He grew up in a farming enterprise in Cass County and was a graduate of the North Dakota Agricultural College before enlisting in the Navy.
William “Bill” Lewis Guy Jr. was born Sept. 30, 1919, in Devils Lake, to William and Mable (Leet) Guy. William Sr. was Ramsey County’s first agricultural extension agent, and in 1922, he relocated with his wife and son to Fargo, near the NDAC college campus, when he became the agricultural extension agent for Cass County. While living in Fargo, Mable gave birth to two more sons, James and John, and Bill attended school at Roosevelt Elementary. In December 1926, the Guy family moved to Amenia, 33 miles northwest of Fargo, when William accepted the offer to manage the estate of Carrie T. Chaffee.
Amenia, with a population of about 140 residents, was originally a company town, owned by its founder, Eben Chaffee, who created the Amenia-Sharon Land Company bonanza farm. Eben died in 1892, and his son, Herbert, became president of the company. Herbert and his wife, Carrie, were vacationing in Europe in 1912 when they were called back home to witness the birth of their first grandchild. They boarded the Titanic, which hit an iceberg in the northern Atlantic Ocean and sank on April 12. Carrie was rescued by a lifeboat, but Herbert went down with the ship. Carrie returned to Amenia, and with the assistance of her nephew, Walter Reed, continued to manage the company. In 1920, the land company was disbanded, and the large 28,000-acre farm was divided among shareholders, most of whom were descendants of Eben Chaffee. Carrie’s estate was the largest holding, and it was divided into 26 separate farms.
Less than three years after William Guy became manager of the estate, Amenia began to experience the effects of the Great Depression when the bank and several businesses were closed. Bill Guy later wrote, “In order to increase the revenues that were coming into the Chaffee estate, my dad started feeding lambs in a feedlot right at the edge of Amenia.” The sheep were purchased in Browning, Montana, and Bill, along with his brother, Jim, accompanied the sheep in railroad boxcars to keep the packed-in lambs from suffocation. As he got older, Bill was responsible for cleaning the sheep pens and helping the threshing crew during harvest time.
The school building at Amenia included all grades, 1-12. When Bill was not at school or tending to his various farm chores, he would often get together with other boys in Amenia and play basketball. The year before Bill entered high school, Amenia High School started an official basketball program, and they soon had a team that was competitive. Bill was a star player for the Amenia Trojans, and during his senior year, the Trojans were 25-0 when they prepared to play Tokio for the Class C state championship. Unfortunately, they lost the game. Bill was named second team all-state in Class C basketball.
After graduating from high school in 1937, Bill Guy enrolled at NDAC, now North Dakota State University, in the fall of that year. He became a pledge at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, joined the Gold Star Band, worked on The Spectrum (student newspaper), and actively participated in intramural sports, especially basketball.
At the start of his junior year, NDAC introduced the Civilian Pilots Training Program. This was a New Deal program to resuscitate the Depression-battered aviation industry and partly a military program to prepare young men to become combat pilots. Guy was one of 10 students at NDAC to be admitted to this new program and received his pilot’s license through it. Guy also became active as a member of a stock-judging team. As a senior, Guy was elected president of SAE and the Blue Key honor society, was named editor of the Bison yearbook, and began dating Elizabeth “Jean” Mason, a freshman at NDAC. Guy graduated from college in the spring of 1941. That fall, he enrolled for a master’s degree in agricultural economics at the University of Minnesota.
A few months later, on Dec. 7, he heard on the radio that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. Guy wrote that while at school during the spring semester, “I decided I wanted to try out for the navy midshipmen program which was officer training, so I applied to the Navy.” Near the end of that semester, Guy’s father died, and Guy appealed to the Navy to delay his entry into service. The Navy granted an extension to Guy until October 1942. At the conclusion of classes during his first year of graduate school, Guy returned to Amenia before entering the Navy to help his mother get her affairs in order.
Guy reported for military duty in October and was sent to midshipmen’s school at Notre Dame. He graduated from there on Jan. 26, 1943, and was promoted to ensign. Guy then rushed home and, on Jan. 30, married Jean Mason before being sent to Norfolk, Virginia, to await assignment. From there he was sent to anti-submarine training at Key West, Florida, and then attended gyro school in New Orleans for three weeks before being assigned to a destroyer in Orange, Texas. That ship, the USS William D. Porter, nicknamed the “Willie Dee,” was a new type of destroyer, designed for anti-submarine warfare, anti-aircraft warfare, and surface action, and was built for speed. Guy was promoted to lieutenant junior grade to serve as gunnery officer of the ship.
The destroyer was commissioned on July 6 and, with its crew, headed for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for a shakedown (test-run) on July 30. Because many features of the ship were of new design, there were many problems that needed to be corrected. Following its month-long test run, the ship went to Norfolk for five weeks to conduct battle practice with ships of the Atlantic Fleet. On Nov. 12, the Porter, with Guy aboard, went to North Africa as an escort to the USS Iowa that took President Franklin Roosevelt to the Tehran Conferences. On the way there, Roosevelt requested that the Iowa conduct an anti-aircraft drill. The torpedo officer on the Porter accidentally released a torpedo that headed straight for the Iowa and barely missed the ship with the president aboard. The torpedo officer was sentenced to two years in the Portsmouth Naval Prison, and other officers on the ship were disciplined. No action was taken against Guy, who was named to replace the torpedo officer.
For most of 1944, the Porter escorted ships and submarines between Alaska and Hawaii, periodically shelling Japanese islands. Near Leyte in the Philippines, in December and early 1945, the Porter frequently became the target of kamikaze attacks, which the crew of the Porter successfully fought off, shooting down several of the Japanese airplanes and avoiding the crashes of others as they plunged into the ocean. This allowed the Porter to return to its primary mission, shore bombardment.
On March 21, the Porter left the Philippine Islands to prepare for the main assault on Okinawa. The Porter was stationed with two other destroyers about 50 miles out, between Okinawa and Japan. Its job was to intercept incoming Japanese aircraft by radar and then warn the intended American targets as to the course, speed and number of these aircraft. If possible, the Porter was poised to shoot down any of the invading airplanes. By early June, the Porter, in this location, had shot down seven Japanese airplanes.
In the early morning of June 10, 1945, the Porter was able to avoid another kamikaze attack as the plane plunged into the ocean, landing directly below the ship. Suddenly, the Porter was lifted out of the water and then dropped back again due to the force of the underwater blast. Many fires broke out and the crew struggled to put out the fires, repair the damage, and keep the ship afloat. When it became apparent that the ship was going to sink, the order was given to abandon ship. Minutes later, the William D. Porter sank, and all 220 naval members aboard the ship survived and were picked up by a trailing ship.
Guy was transported back to the U.S. and given a two-week leave. He returned to North Dakota, and while he was home, Japan surrendered. In October, Guy was discharged and was able to return to graduate school at the University of Minnesota.
(We will continue the story of William Guy next week.)
2023-10-21 11:03:41
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