Page 59 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 93, No. 1 Fall 2012

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Despite the fact that he was not assigned
flight pay and his orders did not involve
flying, Mr. Read often went as the machine
gunner at his own request on combat pa-
trol missions deep in enemy territory.
“I’d had a lot of experience on the range
with machine guns, and I was a pretty good
shot,” he said in an interview for the
Veterans History Project for the Library
of Congress. “I’d ask the bow turret gun-
ner if I saw an interesting mission if he’d
like to have the day off, and they all said
yes, and I began to acquire quite a bit of
experience.”
It was on Mr. Read’s 25th mission for
the commanding officer of the squadron
that his plane came under attack and
crash-landed in the water near Puerta
Princessa in the Philippine Islands. He
and the surviving crew were able to swim
to a small island, but the next day a Japa-
nese plane was shot down nearly on top
of the camp where he and the rest of the
survivors had set up, wounding Mr. Read
again and killing another member of his
crew. Surviving on coconuts, the men
recovered some supplies from the Japanese
plane and built a raft for the captain and
co-pilot, who “were in the best shape,”
and decided to paddle to surrounding
islands to seek help. After about a week,
the captain and co-pilot came back for
the other members of the crew, accom-
panied by friendly natives, who brought
them to Palawan in dugout canoes.
The crew was missing in action for two
months before its rescue by the Navy sub-
marine USS Gunnell. After returning to
San Diego, Mr. Read was invited to join
another unit in its upcoming deployment.
He declined because he was still recover-
ing from his injuries. The entire crew of
that unit was later killed by enemy fire.
Mr. Read’s decorations included two
Air Medals, two Purple Hearts, and the
Navy Cross.
After the war, he became a partner with
Phelps, Fenn and Company, a municipal
bonds firm in New York City. In 1959, he
married Isabel Uppercu Collier and they
subsequently moved to Florida. They had
been married just shy of 50 years at her
death in 2008.
His shooting skills led to Mr. Read’s
qualification as a Navy Pistol and Rifle
Expert. Using those skills, Mr. Read was
a decorated international skeet shooter
who achieved his 100,000-target American
Trap Shooting Association Pin.
Mr. Read was past president of the Palm
Beach Skeet and Trap Club, and a member
of the Philadelphia Gun Club, the Campfire
Club of America, and the Cody Shooting
Complex in Cody, Wyoming, where he
owned another home. He was also a mem-
ber of the Bath and Tennis Club, the Ever-
glades Club, and the Sailfish Club, all in
Palm Beach, Fla., and the Brook Club in
New York. He was the founder of Okeecho-
bee Shooting Sports in Okeechobee, Fla.
After he retired, Mr. Read became a
licensed alligator trapper in southwest
Florida, near the family’s ranch in Im-
mokalee. He prided himself on filling his
quota of 160 alligators annually with
160 shots – continuing to hunt them
days before his death.
Mr. Read is survived by his two grand-
sons, Thomas Alexander Wey Jr. and
David Read Wey, and three great-grand-
sons. He also leaves his three stepsons:
Inglis Collier, Miles Collier, and Barron
Collier II; three step-grandchildren; a sis-
ter, Jean Read Knox; and his brothers, Peter
and Donald Read. He was predeceased
by his wife Isabel and five brothers. His
daughter Edith passed away in May 2012.
1940
James Douglas Hurd
diplomat, painter,
and poet, died
February 19, 2012,
after a yearlong
illness. The im-
mediate cause of
death was pneu-
monia. He died
at his home in
Washington, D.C.,
supported by hospice nurses and his family.
He was born in New York City on Jan-
uary 22, 1921, to James Daniel and Natalie
Jones Hurd. His father died in June 1928
after a long illness, and his mother remar-
ried to James Lakeman Ward of New York.
Mr. Hurd attended the Buckley School in
New York and entered SPS in the Second
Form in 1935. By the end of his first year,
his aunt, Beatrice Hitchcock, wrote that the
boy was finding SPS “an earthly paradise.”
Mr. Hurd, who summered at his family’s
home on Oyster Bay, Long Island, was
an active and trusted student at SPS. He
earned Second Testimonials in Second,
Third, and Fourth Forms, rowed for Shat-
tuck, competed for Old Hundred’s first
football and hockey teams, and held sev-
eral club posts, including secretary of
the Library Association. He was elected
treasurer of the Sixth Form and became
a supervisor of the Lower School that
year, “taking much responsibility for the
tone of the place,” as the Rector noted.
Mr. Hurd graduated with two years of
Latin and four years of French, and
entered Yale’s wartime accelerated
academic program, receiving a B.A. in
English in 1943.
In the summer of 1943, Mr. Hurd shipped
out for the South Pacific, where he served
on a Navy destroyer until the end of the
war. On his return, he enrolled in the
School of Advanced International Studies
(SAIS, now part of Johns Hopkins) in
Washington, D.C., receiving his M.A. in
1947. He soon joined the State Department,
traveling extensively throughout post-war
Europe and the Middle and Far East from
1948 to the end of 1952 in the employ of
the U.S. Embassy in London, as an OSS
officer. In London, he met his wife-to-be,
Nancy Elinor Schwartz, an American, who
was in England to visit relatives. They mar-
ried on June 12, 1952. Two of their three
children were born by 1956, when the
family spent a sabbatical year in India,
perhaps Mr. Hurd’s favorite place.
Throughout his foreign service career,
Mr. Hurd kept his creative side alive and
well. A book of his poetry, Preludes and
Other Poems, was published in London
in 1956.
Mr. Hurd retired in 1974 and turned his
energy toward community service and
painting. As a member of St. Stephen and
the Incarnation Episcopal Church in Wash-
ington, he put his innate compassion and
progressive beliefs into action, helping to
found the Urban Village Housing Project
and the Studio School. In the 1980s, work-
ing with activist Mitch Snyder and the
Community for Creative Non-Violence,
he volunteered at a homeless shelter.
He later joined Father Bill Wendt from
St. Stephen and became closely involved
with the St. Francis Hospice Center.