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Clan Munro USA
Genealogy Pages
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 1920 - 2013 (92 years)
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| Name |
Robert Harry Spiro [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] |
| Prefix |
RAdm |
| Suffix |
Jr., USNR |
| Born |
5 Dec 1920 |
Biltmore, Buncombe Co., North Carolina, USA  [1, 4] |
| Gender |
Male |
| Died |
1 Oct 2013 |
Charlotte, North Carolina |
| Buried |
Western Carolina State Veterans Cemetary, Black Mountain, NC |
| Person ID |
I7157 |
Munro |
| Last Modified |
21 Oct 2022 |
| Father |
Dr. Robert H. Spiro, b. 8 Mar 1885, Poughkeepsie, Dutchess Co., New York, USA , d. Yes, date unknown |
| Mother |
Eoline Peterson Monroe, b. 16 Jul 1890, Lumber Bridge, Robeson Co., North Carolina, USA , d. Jan 1940, Asheville, Buncombe Co., North Carolina, USA (Age 49 years) |
| Family ID |
F2811 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
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| Notes |
- **********
«i»Recalling the fight for Okinawa
Point of View - Robert H. Spiro Jr.
Although barely 21 when I volunteered for the Navy 20 days after Pearl Harbor, I was a college graduate and an approved applicant for graduate studies.
I knew nothing about military service, yet inflamed by the "sudden and unproved attack" on Pearl Harbor, I marched down to the recruiting station and enlisted in the Navy on Dec. 27, 1941.
Promoted to ensign in mid-1943, I was assigned to the USS Morris at Pearl Harbor, Morris was a destroyer and a flagship. My service on the Morris included the last seven campaigns of the war, including Okinawa, the biggest, most bloody and most destructive battle of the entire Pacific war.
The battle of Okinawa began in April 1945 and lasted more than two months.
During that battle, a Japanese kamikaze plane crashed into the port side of my destroyer and flagship of Destroyer Squadron No. 2, a plucky but very light and vulnerable group of 11 ships nicknamed "tin cans" by the sailors.
The Japanese plane penetrated the hull and exploded on the starbord side of the ship. The bow was almost severed from the ship, and the explosion was catastrophic.
The ship quivered, exploded and instantly became a terrifying inferno. Smoke and flame billowed up, while hot plates of steel bowed and cracked.
When it was over, 24 men were dead and 44 wounded, almost 30 percent of the ship's crew.
America and its allies had just landed 180,000 soldiers and Marines on Okinawa. I was a supply and disbursing officer, a lieutenant junior grade in my eighth Pacific campaign on the Morris.
More than 2,500 ships descended on Okinawa in a final, devastating amphibious operation envisioned as the final onslaught before invading the Japanese home islands.
I was on my battle station in the combat information center when it happened, perhaps 20 feet from the explosion. We were knocked violently to the deck as the area was engulfed in total darkness.
We came to, dazed but uninjured, and dashed out to the deck to find total chaos, with dead and injured and terrible damage to the forward half of the ship.
We pulled the wounded to safety, administered first aid, manned fire hoses, organized rescue parties and tried to save the ship.
We thought the ship would have to be abandoned, for ammunition was exploding and the fire was fast spreading.
But with the help of other ships and the heroic effort of the Morris crew, it was saved.
The repair officer recommended that the Morris be towed to sea and sunk, because it was labeled as "junk." But the Morris was patched up and set sail, returning to port in San Francisco on June 18.
The battle of Okinawa produced the highest American casualties in the Pacific War, 49,151. That included more than 12,000 killed or missing and more than 36,000 wounded. Thirty-six American ships were sunk, mostly by kamikaze attacks, and 368 damaged in the two months of the battle.
Japanese losses were staggering, an estimated 110,000 combatants killed, along with 42,000 Okinawans.
Following the carnage, President Harry Truman ordered two atomic bombs dropped and the war ended.
About the Author
Robert H. Spiro Jr. was the president of Jacksonville University for 15 years, ending in 1979. He now lives in Charlotte.
Battle of Okinawa
Kamikaze attacks. Of 1,900 suicide missions flown during the battle, about 14 percent were effective, marking 20 percent of the entire U.S. Navy losses for the entire war.
Huge Battle
Okinawa was the biggest amphibious attack by the U.S. in the Pacific. Only the Normandy invasion was larger.
Source: Knight Tribune News Service«/i»
(Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville) - 18 Apr 2010)
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Robert graduated from Wheaton College on 16 Jun 1941 and was accepted at graduate school, but he decided to teach for a year and perhaps get married. He was a beginning school teacher in Norfolk when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor bringing the U.S. into World War II. Three weeks after the attack, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy.
He was assigned the rate of Yeoman (first class), and served 14 months at the Norfolk Office of Naval Intelligence. He received a commission and served five and a half months as an ensign studying accounting and logistics in the Navy Supply Corps School at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. After graduation, he took his first airplane flight, traveling to San Francisco where he boarded a liberty shop bound for Hawaii.
On 7 Dec 1943, he reported for duty aboard the destroyer USS Morris, DD417, where he served for the next 22 months as a Supply and Disbursing Officer. He was on board the Morris during six major Pacific campaigns. On his first payday in port, with a colt .45 revolver at his side, he took $100,000 from the bank back to the ship on a trolly car.
On 21 Jan 1944, Robert sailed out of San Diego not to return to the States until Jun 1945. During that time the Morris earned six battle stars and encompassed the entire Western and Southwestern Pacific to Western New Guinea, Halmahera Island on the eastern fringe of the Dutch East Indies, and Okinawa Gunto in the East China Sea. Robert did not spend a single night ashore during those eighteen months.
Robert's job was to feed and clothe the sailors (226 officers and enlisted men), provida a ship's store, operate the ship's laundry, secure and stock and issue thousands of spare parts, maintain all equipment records, and handle pay accounts and business records. During combat, he stod a regular communications watch in the Combat Intelligence Center as Coding Officer or commanded a gun crew on the 20 or 40 mm guns.
He resupplied from tenders, auxiliary ships, tankers and large capital ships, and from jungle bases and depots. He became good at getting small luxuries for the crew, like ice cream, through unofficial channels.
During the invasion of Okinawa, the USS Morris was assigned to the radar picket screen which consisted of dozens of destroyers and destroyer escorts interposing a protecting force between Kyushu and Okinawa. During the first week, hundreds of attacks on the fleet occurred each day from Japanese planes, including 355 kamikazes.
Near sunset on Friday, the USS Morris was the last survivor from among six radar picket ships in her area. A lone Japanese torpedo bomber approached from the west flying only 20-25 feet above the waves. The Morris opened fire with all her guns and increased to flank speed, nearly 35 knots, then turned right to avoid the attacker. The plane was on fire at the last, but he kept coming and crashed just forward of amidship and just above the water line on the port side. The wings sheared off while the fusilage with its torpedo bomb penetrated the ship and exploded near the starboard side. The Morris almost broke in two.
Robert was at his duty station in the Combat Intelligence Center, about 20 feet aft of the crash, with about a dozen other men. They were knocked to the deck and thrust into darkness. Dazed but uningured he dashed out on deck to find total chaos. There were dead and injured lying all around, and terrible damage to the ship. Ammunition exploded and fires raged, and a severe list to port developed. He helped pull the injured to safety, administered first-aid, and helped organize rescue and damage control parties. The attack killed 24 and wounded 44 including the ship's physician and most of his aides.
With the heroic help of two other ships and the efforts of the crew, the fires were extinguished and the Morris limped overnight into Kerama Retto, a little archipelago of eight tiny islands that served as an anchorage for damaged vessels.
Although his tiny stateroom was completely destroyed, Robert was able to save all of the most important records and the main safe, which was bolted to the floor.
The ship stayed at Kerama Retto for the next 51 days reparing the ship while fighting off repeated kamikaze attacks night and day. Finally on 22 May 1945, the wounded ship started on the 8,000 mile trip home. About a month later it limped under the Golden Gate Bridge.
The war ended while the Morris was being repaired in dry dock, and in early Nov 1945, Robert, then a Lieutenant Junior Grade, took his first leave in four years rejoining his young wife and two-year old son in Orlando. Robert was separated from active duty and entered Graduate School at the University of North Carolina.
Robert accepted a commission in the U.S. Naval Reserve and rose through the ranks serving as commander of various reserve units and, after 37 years of service, retired in 1978 as a Rear Admiral.
Robert attended six universities and received his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland in 1950.
He was a professor of history at Mississippi College, 1950-57; President of the Blue Ridge Assembly, Inc., 1957-60; Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Marcer University, 1960-64; President of the Jacksonville University, 1964-79; Under Secretary of the Army, 1979-81; Consultant to Business, 1981-84; National Executive Drector of the Reserve Officers Association of the U.S., 1984-86; Chairman of RHS Imprinted Products, Inc., 1986; and Vice President and Member of the Board, of Crescent Financial Corporation, Inc. He founded Tysons National Bank in Tysons Corner, Virginia.
He has published numerous articles, editorials, essays, and book reviews and has contributed to the Encyclopedia Americana and others. He was associate editor of a scholarly journal for three years.
He has served as Vice President of the American Security Council Foundation, President of the Florida Association of Colleges and Universities, Chairman of the Independent Colleges and Universities of Florida, Chairman of the Jacksonville Sesquicentennial Commission, Secretary-Treasurer of the American Association of Urban Universities, President of the Kiwanis Club Macon Council on World Affairs and others, member of the Florida Council of 100, Rotary Club and others, and member of the World Affairs Council of Washington D.C. He served as Under Secretary of the Army from 1979 to 1981.
He is active in tennis, golf, swimming, mountain climbing and travel.
He has received an honorary Doctor of Science from the Florida Institute of Technology, the Palmes Academiques from the President of France, elected to Phi Alpha Theta, Alpha Kappa Psi, and others, received the Distinguished Civilian Service Award from the Secretary of the Army. He is listed in "Who's Who in America", "Who's Who in Education", "Directory of American Scholars" and others.
He is a member in the Army-Navy Country Club, and the Army and Navy Club. He has been appointed to various commissions by the governors of three states.
He lived at 5821 Colfax Avenue in Alexandria, Virginia.
Ref: Clan Munro files - Spiro, Robert H., Jr.
References:
(1) "Munro Eagle" - #26 - 1996 - p. 48-54
Compiled and edited by Allen Alger, Genealogist, Clan Munro Association, USA
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| Sources |
- [S528] Clan Munro files - Spiro, Elizabeth Susan, Elizabeth Susan Spiro, Membership application for Elizabeth Susan Spiro - date d 8 Sep 1999 (Reliability: 3).
- [S204] Clan Munro files - Spiro, Robert Bennett, Robert Bennett Spiro, Membership application for James Monroe Spiro - daed 4 Oc t 1999 (Reliability: 3).
- [S538] Clan Munro files - Spiro, James Monroe, James Monroe Spiro, Membership application for James Monroe Spiro - dated 4 Oc t 1999 (Reliability: 3).
- [S270] Clan Munro files - Spiro, Robert H., Robert H. Spiro, Membership application for Robert H. Spiro dated 7 Aug 1990 (Reliability: 3).
- [S270] Clan Munro files - Spiro, Robert H., Robert H. Spiro, Article from the Florida Times-Union (jacksonville) - "Recalling the fight for Okinawa" - 18 Apr 2010 (Reliability: 3).
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