John Gehrett was born in July 1921 in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, where grew up and was educated. The family home was on the college campus at Juniata [Annotator's Note: Juniata College in Huntingdon]. Gehrett had two older sisters. Food was always on the table even during the Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States]. The family housed college faculty members or their relatives to help pay the bills. Gehrett's father frequently had business out of town. Gehrett's mother was a schoolteacher. When his father was away, Gehrett's mother chaired lively conversations with the six or seven diners at the family table. Children were challenged to bring a topic to the table to expand their knowledge. Gehrett's mother lived to be 101 and enjoyed teaching throughout her life. Gehrett's older sister was one of the first females to achieve a PhD [Annotator's Note: Doctor of Philosophy] degree in chemistry from Yale [Annotator's Note: Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut]. She was brilliant. His other sister won other accolades. Gehrett was rough on his sisters. Gehrett had returned from church when he heard of the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. It did not mean much to him at the time. He always wanted to join the Navy. After high school graduation at 16 years of age, he attempted to enter the Navy at Annapolis [[Annotator's Note: United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland] but was not accepted because of his age. He attended Juniata and after graduating, he enrolled in law school at Yale. He applied for a commission in the United States Navy but was initially refused for a football injury to his arm. After successfully taking another academic examination, he was accepted as an ensign [Annotator's Note: lowest rank of commissioned officer in the US Navy and Coast Guard] in the Navy.

John Gehrett was sent to a Navy supply school in conjunction with Harvard Business School [Annotator's Note: at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts]. In his first attempt to report to duty at the Philadelphia Navy Yard [Annotator's Note: Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania], he incorrectly wore his insignia on his uniform. A Marine guard had to stop and advise him on how to correct his error. That was after Gehrett had knocked his hat off in returning the sentry's salute. In supply school, he learned both Harvard Business School requirements plus Navy supply, storage, and disbursement techniques. He was given the option of selecting his postgraduate duty assignment. He was 20 or 21 years of age and opted to fight the Germans aboard a destroyer in the Atlantic. Instead, he was given shore duty in the Pacific. There was a formal graduation at which point he received confidential orders for Guadalcanal [Annotator's Note: Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands]. Gehrett only told his 89-year-old grandfather of that news because he felt one of them would not survive for a reunion. It was an emotional time. The Guadalcanal duty intended for him to share command of 120 men designated as D2 Supply Unit. They were to build a Navy supply base. The island was not yet secure at the time. After a time in San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California], he sailed unescorted with his outfit and 8,000 troops to Guadalcanal. While in San Francisco before sailing, the sailors managed to enjoy dancing and nightlife in the city. The Guadalcanal duty had Gehrett assigned to Admiral Nimitz's [Annotator's Note: US Navy Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Sr., Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet] staff on detached duty to the island. His ship was the first unescorted vessel to sail through the Pacific. It took about a month to zigzag [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver] at eight knots to Guadalcanal. The troops were not needed any longer, so the ship was rerouted to Australia. Approaching Sydney [Annotator's Note: Sydney, Australia], the troops were ordered to New Guinea. Milne Bay [Annotator's Note: in Papua New Guinea] was gorgeous. Diarrhea [Annotator's Note: loose, watery, and frequent bowel movements] and dysentery [Annotator's Note: infection of the intestines] were prevalent in the D2 outfit. Only Gehrett and another man in the outfit did not suffer from them. Typhoons had wiped out the Army and Navy there. Gehrett did not report to anyone and could have spent the duration of the war there. Instead, he hitched a ride on an Australian frigate and in two hours had rounded up the men who were able to walk and gotten them aboard an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] bound for the frigate for the return to Sydney. Gehrett enjoyed Pimm's Cups [Annotator's Note: an alcoholic drink] while sailing on the ship. The British and Australian Navies had liquor rationed for the enlisted men while officers enjoyed a more liberal supply of liquor while onboard their ships.

John Gehrett reached Sydney [Annotator's Note: as a Supply Officer of a Navy D2 Supply Unit, Gehrett reached Sydney, Australia in early 1943] and, because there were no officer's quarters, was billeted in the University of Sydney. Wearing their uniforms, the Americans helped their discredited British Navy colleagues who wore civilian clothes. The loss of ships by the Britannic fleet resulted in the members choosing not to wear their uniforms. The Allies worked together to organize their supply depot. Only two ships a month arrived due to priority of supplies being routed to Europe as decided by Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] and Chief of Staff, King [Annotator's Note: US Navy Admiral Ernest Joseph King; Commander in Chief, United States Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations]. Supplying troops equally for two wars at one time was not possible. World War One submarines were the only offensive capability in Gehrett's area. The Australians pitched in to help the Americans while they were in their homeland. Australia was the only country in the war that both received and provided Lend-Lease supplies [Annotator's Note: Lend-Lease Policy, officially An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States 1941 to 1945]. The Australians went so far as to provide more than they received. The D2 Unit took care of bi-directional Lend-Lease within MacArthur's [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] staff. MacArthur had a large ego as did Halsey [Annotator's Note: US Navy Fleet Admiral William F. Halsey]. Both felt they would win the war on their own. When Guadalcanal [Annotator's Note: Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, sometimes called the Battle of the Solomons or the Battle of Friday the 13th, 12 to 15 November 1942] and Halsey received copious publicity, MacArthur was concerned. When wounded Japanese troops began killing American medics who attempted to aid them, the Americans tossed the rule book and assumed the same approach—no prisoners. The Japanese were merely reacting according to their culture. They were not animals. MacArthur sent the 32nd Infantry Division across the Owen-Stanley Mountains from Port Moresby, the capital of New Guinea. The troops received no supplies and tropical illnesses ensued. They were not fit to fight when they reached the objective. Australian troops had to be sent to the rescue of the sickened Americans. MacArthur was very intelligent but capable of major mistakes that he would not accept. After contracting a skin disease, Halsey accepted relief by Admiral Spruance [Annotator's Note: US Navy Admiral Raymond Ames Spruance]. The Americans deceived the Japanese into believing that each of those admirals led separate fleets when there was only one. The Battle of the Coral Sea [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Coral Sea, 4 to 8 May 1942 at Coral Sea Islands] was a standoff but kept the Japanese from invading Australia. During this time, Gehrett was working to supply electronics and other various needs for all military in the area. The Australian economy did much of the goods manufacturing for his efforts. Supplies from the States never really ramped up during the war. Hollandia, on the western half of New Guinea, was to be the staging area for attacking the Philippines. Halsey supported MacArthur with ships for the invasion. There were no Japanese present when Hollandia was assaulted. A careless mistake caused a great loss of supplies stored at a supply depot on the beach. The lovely terrain of Lake Sentani nearby was chosen by MacArthur as the location to build his headquarters for him and as his family residence. Many Seabees [Annotator's Note: members of US naval construction battalions] were killed in the process. The Navy decided to build a compound overlooking the MacArthur home. When it was determined that the Japanese forces had withdrawn inland in the Philippines, that invasion timetable was accelerated. Consequently, the advance was made on Leyte Gulf [Annotator's Note: Battle of Leyte Gulf, 23 to 26 October 1944 at Leyte Gulf, Philippines]. Imelda Marcos [Annotator's Note: Imelda Romualdez Marocs, Filipino politician and First Lady of the Philippines from 30 December 1965 to 25 February 1986] had hundreds of shoes which were displayed in a museum near there in Tacloban [Annotator's Note: Tacloban, Philippines, after World War 2]. Halsey went after the Japanese fleet up north to end the war once and for all. He previously had lost ships in a typhoon. Nimitz [Annotator's Note: US Navy Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Sr., Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet] warned his officers not to destroy their ships following that incident. Gehrett had little contact with MacArthur. MacArthur's staff, which had attempted to build a Philippine Army prior to the war, was generally pretty weak. The exception was Admiral Kenny [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Major General George Churchill Kenny].

After American troops assaulted the Philippines, John Gehrett [Annotator's Note: as a Supply Officer of a Navy D2 Supply Unit] arrived there. MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] arrived on the beaches a month after they were secured. He arrived with the president of the Philippines [Annotator's Note: Sergio Osmeña, Senior, fourth president of the Philippines, 1944 to 1946] as a publicity event. The supporting engagements at sea represented the war's largest naval battle [Annotator's Note: Battle of Leyte Gulf, 23 to 26 October 1944 at Leyte Gulf, Philippines]. Halsey [Annotator's Note: US Navy Fleet Admiral William F. Halsey] left the supplies ships in Leyte Gulf to pursue a Japanese fleet. The American ships could have been destroyed, but the Japanese aborted their attack. No one in Japan knows why. It was another incident, like the Battle of Coral Sea [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Coral Sea, 4 to 8 May 1942 at Coral Sea Islands], that was a critical turning point in the war's outcome. The people of the Philippines were wonderful. They loved to dance to Glenn Miller [Annotator's Note: Alton Glenn Miller, American musician] music. Gehrett and his unit were charged with deciding how much each coconut tree was worth when they had to be felled and how much labor had to be paid to construct airstrips. He saw Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Philippines] and its Japanese internment camp [Annotator's Note: Santo Tomas Internment Camp, or, Manila Internment Camp, University of Santo Tomas in Manila, Philippines] similar to Dachau [Annotator's Note: Dachau concentration camp complex near Dachau, Germany] in Germany. About 8,000 people from Allied countries were confined in Santo Tomas University. An armored division was sent to rescue those captives. Gehrett helped a Navy man find his mother and grandmother after an extensive search. Destruction was extensive in Manila. Japanese burned people alive in locked up buildings. Gehrett kept tabs on the events in the Pacific war even though his focus was in the south. Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] divided responsibility for the conflict in the Pacific between two leaders. He assigned MacArthur the south and Nimitz [Annotator's Note: US Navy Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Sr., Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet] the northern part of the Pacific. Gehrett could not see the shift of the war in favor of the Allies. The film [Annotator's Note: Beyond All Boundaries, a 2009 short film depicting the battles of World War 2 at The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] shows that the Allies were prepared to lose 250,000 troops in an invasion of Japan. Gehrett's job was to prepare for the invasion. MacArthur only found out about the atomic bombs two weeks before they were dropped [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] . It is amazing that Truman did not know about them until after he assumed the presidency [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States, became president after the death of Franklin Roosevelt in April 1945]. Gehrett did not celebrate D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] except that might end with some additional help. After the bombs were dropped, the plans to invade Japan had to be immediately altered for occupation of the enemy homeland. Gehrett and his outfit had to work until they dropped while in Manila trying to get ready for potentially a very bad occupation, while MacArthur was on the Missouri with the surrender [Annotator's Note: the Japanese formal surrender occurred in Tokyo Bay, Japan aboard the USS Missouri (BB-63) in September 1945]. Gehrett anticipated wearing his .45 sidearm [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol] while in Japan.

John Gehrett [Annotator's Note: as a Supply Officer of a Navy D2 Supply Unit] participated in the occupation of Japan and with reparations from the Japanese. The first winter was terrible. It was hard to get food and supplies. The Japanese tried to inflate prices, but the Americans only paid what goods and services were worth in the 1930s. The Americans wanted the Russians to enter the war, but they refused until two weeks before the bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. The Russians have the Kuril Islands in Japan as a result of their entry into the war. The Japanese fear the Russians. Truman [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States] was a great man, but he wanted a four-way occupation of Japan to include the United States, England, Australia, and China. MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] said that only he would make the decisions. The others could be a committee to make recommendations, but MacArthur stated that he would be in charge. MacArthur was right. The Russians were to be allotted four Japanese submarines after the surrender. Gehrett took Russians to the appointed location, but they were scuttled out of Kobe [Annotator's Note: Kobe, Japan] before the Russians could take them. MacArthur had ordered that to be done. Gehrett was embarrassed, but the Russians understood. Many people think that MacArthur did a wonderful job in Japan, but we [Annotator's Note: the United States] still maintain a large force in the country. That is because Japan is hated by many surrounding countries. The Japanese look down on those in nearby countries. Nothing has been done to amend bad feelings except that the Japanese recognized they used comfort women [Annotator's Note: women from occupied countries abducted by the Japanese as sexual slaves]. Gehrett wanted to join the diplomatic corps so he could find better solutions than going to war. He was overcome by some of the scenes from the film [Annotator's Note: Beyond All Boundaries, a 2009 short film depicting the battles of World War 2 at The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana]. He has difficulty going to any of the wartime cemeteries. We [Annotator's Note: Americans] have not won a war since World War 2 because we do not respect our country or the veterans. There should be two years national service to give back to the country. It does not just involve serving in the military, but it could be the Red Cross or other services. There is no respect for the country. Consequently, we have not won any wars after World War 2.