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Home Town New Orleans, LA and Detroit, MI.
Last Address Elmore John Leonard, Jr. Born: 11-Oct-1925 Birthplace: New Orleans, LA Died: 20-Aug-2013 Location of death: Bloomfield Township, MI
Date of Passing Aug 20, 2013
Location of Interment Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery - Detroit, Michigan
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SK3 Elmore John Leonard, Jr. Seabee, U.S. Navy 1943-1946
Elmore Leonard Born: 11-Oct-1925
Birthplace: New Orleans, LA
Died: 20-Aug-2013
Location of death: Bloomfield Township, MI
In 1943, at the age of 17, Leonard graduated from The University of Detroit High School, and tried to join the Marines, but was rejected because of poor vision. He was subsequently drafted and assigned to the Seabees, the fighting construction battalion of the United States Navy. He served for a little more than a year and a half in the Admiralty Islands and the Philippines before returning home in January of 1946. He was assigned to a ship for six and a half months and was discharged from the Navy in June of that year.
Elmore Leonard was the author of numerous westerns and hard-boiled crime novels. Leonard grew up in Detroit and served in the US Navy before attending the University of Michigan. Friends called him "Dutch", a nickname that somehow stuck on Leonard from childhood, named for a pitcher with the Washington Senators, Emil "Dutch" Leonard. He married in 1949, and eventually fathered five children. He began supporting his increasingly large family by writing advertising copy, mostly for Chevrolet. In his spare time he wrote Westerns, but they did not bring in enough money to live on. In 1951, Leonard was ready to quit the ad business and concentrate on writing full-time, but his agent talked him out of it. After the success of the Paul Newman's dramatization of Leonard's Hombre, he finally quit his day job. See bio.
Funeral: Navy officers in white dress uniforms conducted a "farewell to arms" flag presentation ceremony and played "Taps" on a bugle for Leonard, a Navy veteran of World War II.
Chain of Command invasion and occupation of the Admiralty Islands. On February 29, 1944, advance elements of the 1st Cavalry Division landed on the island of Los Negros on a reconnaissance mission. Finding the area lightly held, the division's mission immediately became one of invasion and occupation. Among the reinforcing elements sent ashore on March 2 were detachments from four of the construction battalions of the 4th Naval Construction Brigade, the 40th, 46th, 78th, and 17th. Development of Los Negros and Manus, the principal islands of the Admiralty group, during the succeeding months, yielded the largest and most important naval and air base in the Southwest Pacific theater. Facilities were established which, together with spacious Seeadler Harbor, made the base at Manus capable of supporting not only the 7th Fleet, attached to the Southwest Pacific command, but also a sizable portion of the Pacific Fleet as well.
