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Home Town Aransas Pass, Texas
Last Address Riverside National Cemetery Riverside CA
Malcolm E. Wolfe stood watch on the deck of a Navy destroyer on a quiet evening, diverting his eyes into a textbook.
Given a choice, he would have been in a college classroom, pursuing an education that had been denied him for lack of money.
A first class petty officer noticed his interest in the book and asked if he had ever heard of the U.S. Naval Academy. He hadn't.
But by the end of the evening, the Texas farm boy who had graduated at the top of his high school class was filing an application for a Naval Academy entrance exam.
The application, radio-telegraphed from the ship, reached its destination minutes before the midnight deadline.
Malcolm E. Wolfe passed the fleet examination, spent a year in a preparatory school and graduated in the 1941 Naval Academy class.
He would go on to earn the Distinguished Flying Cross and two Air Medals as a World War II fighter pilot during a naval career that spanned 31 years.
He was a Pearl Harbor Survivor and entered flight training after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and was assigned to Bombing Squadron 10 aboard the aircraft carrier Intrepid in 1944.
On his squadron's first combat mission, Capt. Wolfe's executive officer was shot down. Capt. Wolfe took the wounded officer's command and went on to earn a Distinguished Flying Cross for action against Japanese forces in the Inland Sea in March 1945.
He was cited for his attack on two Japanese battleships and a carrier amid anti-aircraft fire and the threat of enemy aircraft.
In 1947, Capt. Wolfe returned to his first love, aircraft, as a test pilot of some of the Navy's first jets. He was the 23rd aviator to test-fly the McDonnell Douglas Banshee at Patuxent River Naval Air Test Center in Maryland.
Capt. Wolfe returned to the Naval Academy in 1956 to direct the academic division of the Executive Department, which preceded the Naval Leadership and Law Department.
During his two-year assignment, he hired the department's first civilian instructors and wrote "Selected Readings in Naval Leadership" and "Naval Leadership."
Translated for use by foreign navies, the books were especially popular in Japan and China. By 2002, more than 70,000 copies of "Naval Leadership" had been published in Japanese for use by the Japanese Maritime Defense Force.
In 1965, Capt. Wolfe retired from active duty as a member of the Pacific Fleet Board of Inspection and Survey at San Diego Naval Training Center, where he had begun his career as an enlisted man in 1934.
See: OBITUARY (biography) for more details.
Other Comments:
NAVAL ACADEMY SPECIAL AWARDS
Captain Malcolm E. Wolfe Naval Leadership Prize
The Captain Malcolm E. Wolfe Naval Leadership Prize is presented to that midshipman of the graduating class who is determined by the Commandant to stand highest in leadership, conduct and aptitude for commissioning. The award is funded by royalities from the sale of Naval Leadership, thanks to the generosity of the author, Captain Malcolm E. Wolfe, Class of 1941.
1947-1947, Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River, MD
Other Memories In 1947, Capt. Wolfe returned to his first love, aircraft, as a test pilot of some of the Navy's first jets. He was the 23rd aviator to test-fly the McDonnell Douglas Banshee at Patuxent River Naval Air Test Center in Maryland.
