Meet now the first subject of our story, John Floyd Skinner, Jr. On January 1, 1942, John was stationed onboard the Navy destroyer USS O'Brien, in the Norfolk Navy Shipyard in Norfolk, VA. and had been on the O'Brien since its commissioning in April of 1940. O'Brien was in for a refitting, and due (at least in part) to the attack on Pearl Harbor, O'Brien would soon be proceeding to the Pacific Theater, after having been in the Atlantic for its entire existence so far.
For the next few days, there will be some background posts to describe some of the events for John up to 1942.
Background - Early Years - John F. Skinner, Jr.
John was born and grew up in Lauramie Township in the southern part of Tippecanoe County, Indiana. His father's family had been farming there for several generations. John F, Skinner, Sr. who went by Floyd, and Bessie B. Lee were his parents and had been married in 1911. Their two daughters, Lucille and Margaret, were born in 1911 and 1913 respectively. John Jr. was born in 1921. Another child, Richard, born a few years before John, died very young (at less than 1 year old) of scalding when he had accidentally let the hot water out of a washing machine.
The family had owned their own farm in the 1910s and 1920s, but hard times closed in during the later years. Sometime in the late 1920s or in the 1930s, the farm was lost due to the effects of the Great Depression. Floyd was forced for some time to farm on shares in Clark's Hill. The family of necessity moved from Stockwell to Clark's Hill, and that is where John went to high school. John worked on the farm and had typical high school activities such as 4H in addition to the usual farm chores.
Whenever John had free time, he could probably be found shooting baskets, as he had taken a liking to the relatively new sport of basketball. Basketball had only been invented about 40 years earlier, and had already taken the state of Indiana by storm. The high school state basketball tourney had been going for a number of years. Now in those days, basketball was very different from what we know today - jump shots were unheard of, the key was much thinner (and actually looked like a key), players usually shot two-handed set shots or an underhanded hook shot, and of course there were no dunks until many years later. What these players might make of the high-flying, jump-shooting, slam-dunking hoopsters of today, is hard to imagine.
Here are some samples from YouTube of basketball at around that time.
Now there is one other rule that was in effect in this time - there was a jump ball at center court after each scored basket. In the tournament at the end of his sophomore year, John's team, Clark's Hill, drew as their first opponent in the tournament the local power school, Lafayette Jefferson. Having a much larger enrollment, Jefferson had many more players to choose from, and taller players as well. In this particular game, John, who was the tallest player on his team at about 6-2, ended up jumping center after each basket against the opposing center who was about 6-8. As you might expect, this was very frustrating - and inevitably, the score was lopsided, 52-12, in favor of Jefferson. See: Clark's Hill Tournament History. Nevertheless, the team had a lot of fun playing; I remember one of his teammates speaking to me at John's burial service, telling me how much they enjoyed the times of playing high school basketball together.
As high school was ending, John did not see a great future where he was; he could continue farming with his Dad, but could not go to college as there was no money to send him. As a young man looking for a change of scenery, and maybe some adventure, he decided to join the Army and see the world (or at least a part of it).
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