Military Service and the War

John Jackson Ledbetter Jr. graduated from Texas A&M in 1925 — an institution that was, at the time, a military college. His yearbook page in The Longhorn listed him as a 2nd Lieutenant in Battery C, Artillery. On May 29, 1925, four days after commencement, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Field Artillery Reserve.

For the next fifteen years, the Army was a two-week obligation each summer. Between 1926 and 1940, JJL completed nine fourteen-day reserve training periods, mostly at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and Camp Bullis, Texas. In March 1932, during one of these periods, he drove to Camp Bullis and took command of Battery B, 1st Battalion:

Up at 5:30 a.m. and drove to Camp Bullis. Left camp at 8:00 with Battalion of F.A. I was acting as Commander of Btry B 1st Bn. After an R.S.O.P. problem on the route we went into camp for the night near Camp Stanley. Put the battery into position after dark. Slept on a cot in a pup tent tonite and to have frozen. (March 30, 1932)

He was promoted steadily through the reserve ranks: First Lieutenant in 1930, Captain in 1936. But until January 1941, the Army remained a sideline to his real work at the International Boundary Commission.

Called to Active Duty

On January 3, 1941, everything changed. JJL reported for active duty with the Construction Division, Quartermaster Corps, United States Army. He was thirty-nine years old, a Captain, and — critically — both an engineer and an attorney. The Army knew exactly what to do with him.

His first assignment was Chief of Legal and Labor Relations for the 8th Construction Zone at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. He was responsible for all legal and labor matters connected to wartime construction across Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. The country was building military installations at a frantic pace, and JJL handled the contracts, disputes, and labor relations that made it possible.

He was promoted to Major in September 1941 and transferred to the Quartermaster Corps and Corps of Engineers.

Across the Wartime South

From 1942 through 1944, JJL moved through a series of increasingly senior assignments across the South:

• January 1942 to December 1942 — Vicksburg, Mississippi. Chief of Labor and Public Relations and Legal Branch, Lower Mississippi Valley Division Engineer Office. He supervised labor relations, public relations, and legal matters for war construction contracts across Arkansas, Louisiana, and parts of Tennessee and Mississippi. He also served as Chairman of the War Department Deferment Reviewing Board.

• December 1942 to May 1943 — Dallas, Texas. Director of Labor, Employee and Public Relations and Military Personnel Division, Southwestern Division Engineer Office. His responsibilities expanded to cover the entire Southwestern Division of the Corps of Engineers — Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

• May 1943 to May 1944 — Dallas. Director of Contract Renegotiation Division. Responsible for renegotiating all Corps of Engineers war contracts in the Southwestern Division under the 6th Supplemental National Defense Appropriation Act.

• May 1944 to September 1944 — Commanding Officer, Baton Rouge Engineer Depot, Louisiana. His first command post — responsible for receipt, storage, and issue of all engineer supplies, plus administrative, security, intelligence, and command functions.

He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in October 1942, just twenty months after being called to active duty.

The Diary Gap

The diaries fall silent from 1939 through 1944 — the exact years of JJL’s wartime service. Whether he stopped writing or the diaries were lost, the record of these years survives only through the chronological summary in the JJLHIST genealogy, compiled later. From September 1944 through January 1945, he served miscellaneous temporary duty assignments at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana; the Ohio River Division Engineer Office in Columbus, Ohio; and the Albany Engineer Depot in New York.

Preparing for Japan

In January 1945, JJL was assigned to the School of Military Government at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He graduated on February 10 with a rating of “Superior” and transferred to the Civil Affairs Training School at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he studied Japanese language, area, and economy in preparation for the military occupation of Japan.

On August 14, 1945, in Ann Arbor:

President Truman announced by radio at 7:00 p.m. that Japan had accepted surrender terms.

His classmates left by train for the West Coast. JJL was too ill to join them. The ulcer that had shadowed him since the early 1930s — first diagnosed by fluoroscope in 1929, tracked through years of flare-ups in the diary — had worsened under the strain of training. He was admitted to Percy Jones General Hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan.

Retired for Disability

On November 14, 1945, a medical board delivered its verdict:

Board found that I was permanently incapacitated from active military duty by reason of duodenal ulcer and that such disability was a result of incidence of the service.

He was promoted to Colonel in December 1945 — a final recognition — and placed on terminal leave through March 24, 1946, when his retirement became official. He had entered the Army as a Captain and left as a Colonel, having served across eight states, commanded a depot, directed the renegotiation of millions of dollars in war contracts, and trained for an occupation he would never carry out.

After the War

JJL drove back to Texas and considered his options. He briefly returned to law school at SMU on the GI Bill, then accepted a position as Executive Secretary of the Texas Society of Professional Engineers in Austin at $7,500 a year. His retirement pay from Veterans Affairs was $284.37 a month.

He never fully recovered. The ulcer returned repeatedly — in 1948, in 1951 (when 80 to 90 percent of his stomach was removed at Brooke Army Hospital), and beyond. The war had given him his rank and taken his health.

His elder son Jack Wallace would follow him into uniform. In June 1947, Jack received an appointment to the United States Naval Academy from Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson. He graduated on June 1, 1951, commissioned as an Ensign, while General George C. Marshall delivered the principal address. The Colonel watched from the gallery.