A captain when he was discharged from the Navy, John Curtis Spencer was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia and was accepted into the U.S. Naval Academy in the summer of 1936. Spencer had attended a private boys' school in Richmond that stressed the humanities and although he was good at languages and history, he had to really work for credits in mechanical engineering, ordinance and gunnery. Spencer liked all sports, and excelled in track, but never attained a high rank in the academy because he was too much of a "hell raiser." He liked to "go over the wall," and occasionally got caught. Spencer graduated and was commissioned in 1939, and was ordered aboard the cruiser USS Houston (CA-30). It was a beautiful ship, on the West Coast at that time, and was the ship chosen by Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: President Franklin D. Roosevelt] when he had to go to sea. It had a great group of officers and Spencer enjoyed that duty. Because Spencer had less than perfect vision, which was required for foreign duty, he was removed from the Houston when she sailed for the South Pacific. Accordingly detached, Spencer reported to the USS Oklahoma (BB-37). Spencer considers that assignment fortunate, because the Houston was sunk by the Japanese while trying to get to Australia. Most of its crew was lost, the rest were picked up by Japanese and put in concentration camps until the end of the war, and that might have been Spencer's fate. Spencer stayed aboard the Oklahoma until the beginning of the war.

He had arrived in Pearl Harbor, but John Curtis Spencer was not aboard his ship when the Japanese attacked on 7 December 1941. He knows he was extremely fortunate that the senior watch officer had shifted all watch sections on the USS Oklahoma (BB-37) when it arrived in port the day before. Originally, Spencer had the duty from noon on Saturday until noon on Sunday, but the schedule change meant he had duty from getting into port until Saturday morning, and had the weekend to himself. Spencer and his wife got back late from a Saturday night party on the far side of the island, and turned in at the garage apartment they had rented from the territorial medical officer. At eight on Sunday morning, their landlord ran up the stairs and announced that the Japanese were attacking. The Oklahoma and several other ships were moored abreast of each other next to Ford Island when the Japanese came over the water with their torpedoes, and five torpedoes hit the ship on the port side. One went right through Curtis's stateroom. If the watch had not changed, Spencer would typically have been sleeping in on that Sunday morning. He and five other sailors drove to the harbor. Right when they cleared the main gate, a bomb hit the ships in dry dock about 200 yards down the road. At the dock where he would normally catch a tender, the Oklahoma's communications officer pointed out their vessel. The Oklahoma had already capsized, turned completely over, with its stern sticking up in the air. Obviously, when the Japanese attack began, the men aboard assumed their battle stations, and many were below decks. When she turned over, they were trapped. Some managed to make their way to pockets of air, and were knocking on the hull. Once the sounds were detected, ship fitters cut through the hull and pulled some of them, Spencer said the number 30 sticks in his mind, to safety. Many, however, were lost.

John Curtis Spencer said the USS Maryland (BB-46) was inboard of the USS Oklahoma (BB-37), and because the Oklahoma took the Japanese torpedoes, the Maryland was saved. The USS Arizona (BB-39) had been hit and was on fire and in bad shape. Pearl Harbor was ablaze, with boats moving around, trying to pick up survivors. Spencer's battle station on the Oklahoma was on the antiaircraft guns, so when he boarded the Maryland, he took a position on an antiaircraft weapon. There were very few people from the original crew left aboard. The Japanese came in on a second raid, and Spencer saw planes flying around, but didn't hit any of them. When the Japanese retired, he went ashore on Ford Island where everything was in confusion. The island had been hit and many planes were destroyed. At about seven that evening, he and another officer decided to go home and return after some rest. They stopped by Queen's Hospital, where the other officer's pregnant wife was waiting to deliver their child, and Spencer telephoned home. When his wife learned where he was calling from, she worried that he had been wounded, and he had to reassure her that he was ok. The next morning, Spencer headed back to Pearl Harbor early, and everything was still a mess, with people wandering about. Spencer was placed at Fleet Weather Central; not that he knew anything about weather reporting, he was mostly coding and decoding messages. He stayed at that position until ordered back to the United States in May [Annotator's Note: May 1942].

When John Curtis Spencer got back to the United States [Annotator's Note: in May 1942], he reported to sub chaser training command in Miami. After about three months he took command of a PC [Annotator's Note: patrol craft], a vessel Spencer said was a really fine 160-foot small craft with about 60 men. The ship was commissioned out of Algiers, Louisiana, right across the river from New Orleans. Spencer noted that the rise and fall of tides in Algiers can be very extreme, and recalled an amusing story about a fancy shipboard dinner he arranged shortly before they were to sail. On this occasion it was low tide, and they couldn't see the ships' numbers. Spencer had invited his squadron commander, and everyone showed up at the dock dressed in whites, and with wives in tow. They climbed the rope ladders, got aboard ship, and went down to the wardroom. There, they found the tables covered with charts and books; Spencer learned from the officers that they were on the wrong ship. After clambering off again, and finding the right vessel, they had a delightful dinner. The PC sailed from Algiers, assigned to escort a convoy from Galveston, Texas to Key West, Florida. Spencer was in command of three or four other escort ships. At the time, he had only a bullhorn with which to communicate orders about formation, course, and distance between ships. The PC headed out and joined up on the port bow of the convoy, and at about midnight, Spencer turned in. At about two in the morning, a messenger woke him with the news that they had lost the convoy. Spencer could hardly believe it, and got no answer when he asked what happened. Spencer steamed on a course that would likely situate them alongside the convoy again and speeded up a little. By sunrise, he could see masts on the horizon. When the convoy got into Key West, the ships' captains held a briefing, and the skipper of another ship told him he "sure did look good coming from that dawn sweep."

John Curtis Spencer was given command of a destroyer escort, the USS Micka (DE-176), and did duty in the south Atlantic, the Caribbean, and running convoys to Brazil, all pretty uneventful. Spencer was based in Trinidad doing mostly independent duty for about four months. The ship was ordered back for routine overhaul, stopping in Aruba where they learned of a torpedo attack, and searched for the guilty sub, but didn't find it. In 1945, Spencer transferred to the command of the USS Formoe (DE-509), whose shakedown cruise was bound for Guantanamo just when a hurricane was threatening Florida. The Formoe hit heavy weather soon after they were underway, and the ship traveled right through the storm, rolling up to 70 degrees at one point. Spencer said when they arrived at Guantanamo Bay, his crew was well shaken down. Spencer then headed out through the Panama Canal to the south Pacific, near New Guinea, where he spent the rest of the war in and around the Philippine Islands.

John Curtis Spencer said his first job in the Pacific was to escort a destroyer up to Lingayen Gulf, and the USS Formoe (DE-509) spent a couple months on mine disposal duty in a field in Bala Bay, on the east coast of Luzon. The mine sweeper would run ahead, and the mines would pop up. Members of the Formoe's crew would go out in whale boats and explode them with rifles; they cleared the mine field of about 90 mines. Spencer was next ordered to go into Casiguran Sound, where it was thought there were still some Japanese. The Formoe was at general quarters, passing the beach, and low and behold, a bunch of Filippinos had perfectly formed a welcome sign with their bodies. The crew waved and sailed on. Shortly before MacArthur [Annotator's Note: US Army General Douglas MacArthur] landed in the Philippines, the Formoe joined a picket line off of Panay to help insure the landing was successful. At Morotai, they staged an escort of Australian ships into Borneo, acting as headquarters ship for naval forces there. On four occasions, the Formoe went into the waters near Tarakan to provide protection to the troops that went ashore, engaging in shore bombardment and laying down a barrage before the landings. Almost nightly they fought off Japanese aircraft.

John Curtis Spencer said the USS Formoe (DE-509) was steaming up to Okinawa when the word came that the Americans had dropped the atomic bomb. He remembers the yell that went up from everybody aboard ship. It was great. Afterward, the ship was assigned to escort the commander of Air Wing One to Hong Kong and Singapore; the Formoe was the first American ship to arrive in Hong Kong. Spencer's ship was ordered back to the United States for decommissioning, and it was put into the reserve fleet. That's where Spencer left her. He stayed in the Navy, assigned to the staff of the 19th Fleet Command. When an ALNAV [Annotator's Note: an all Naval personnel communication] came out saying that volunteers were required for island government jobs, it sounded pretty good to Spencer, who wanted a couple of years duty in one spot where he could take his family. He went to Stanford for six months, and was assigned to the island of Yap, in the western Caroline Islands, to act as executive officer of the island government unit.

John Curtis Spencer retired from the Navy as Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations for Commander Service Force in 1965 in Norfolk, Virginia, and moved to Florida. He accepted a job as Commandant of Midshipmen at a private boy's school and retried from there after about five years. When asked if the war changed him, Spencer said "not much." He has always liked a good time, and enjoyed his cocktail hour, but he asserts he retained his basic feelings. He admits he must have learned a lot of things, including responsibility, and how to be a very good skipper. He declares he took it seriously, and knows he trained his officers to be good sailors. Looking back, that gives him satisfaction. He feels it important to study World War 2, because there were so many phases and actions. Midway, he said, was really an epic. He thinks it important to have museums such as The National WWII Museum to keep the public aware of what took place. He notes that people speak of his as the "Greatest Generation," and remembers how awful the years of the Great Depression were, but he has a great deal of admiration for today's youngsters, and feels they will be on an equal basis in the end.