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Hubbard, Ralph H. Jr.

Ralph H. Hubbard U.S. Navy WWII
Ralph H. Hubbard U.S. Navy WWII
 
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Date of Birth: 4/18/1912
Died On: 3/12/1999
Street Address: Windcrest Road
Service Number: unknown
Branch of Service: U.S. Navy - USNR OSS Detachment 101


Veteran Code: USN-111


BIOGRAPHY
 
Ralph H. Hubbard

Ralph Hustace Hubbard was born on April 18, 1912, in New York City, New York, to Etta Fleming, age 21, and Ralph Hustace Hubbard, age 28. In Rye his family lived on Windcrest Road. Ralph attended Rye Country Day, Middlesex School and graduated from Princeton University class of 1934.

After his graduation, he became a buyer in South America for Anderson, Clayton & Co., cotton merchants with offices in New York and a main office in Houston, Texas. After five years in South America, he was promoted to the co-managership of the Shanghai office in China.

Ralph married Carol Carpenter on July 17, 1939, in Rye, New York. After his marriage, he and his bride settled in Shanghai. In November, 1940, conditions in Shanghai warranted evacuation of non-Chinese women and children and Mrs. Hubbard returned to the home of her parents in Rye.

Ralph stayed until Dec. 4, 1941 when he sailed for Manila, hoping to get a boat for the United States. The Japanese invasion on December 7,1941 caught him in the Philippines and it was not until Dec. 29 that Mrs. Hubbard heard his voice over the telephone. He said he was well and he advised her not to worry.

Three days later Manila was declared an open city and a list of those interned for the duration was published in newspapers after the names were released in Washington, DC.

Ralph was on the list of those taken prisoner with the other non-combatants and was interned in Santo-Tomas Internment Camp. Two years later he was exchanged for Japanese nationals and returned home in December 1943, with 1500 others, on the liner Gripsholm and reunited with his wife Carol.

Ralph immediately enlisted in the Navy to fight the Japanese in the South Pacific. He served as an officer in the U.S. Navy. During WWII, he was a Lt. JG, recruited by the OSS to serve with an air-sea rescue PT boat squadron in the South Pacific. He was awarded a Bronze Star.

Following the war, for 31 years Ralph worked for Anderson, Clayton & Co., cotton merchants in Latin America and the Far East. He and Carol lived in Argentina from 1948-65 and both their children were born there.

Ralph returned with Carol to Greenwich, CT and he began a consulting career in executive recruiting as a partner of Emile Zimmer Associates.

Ralph was still a popular member of his Princeton class and attended as many class affairs as his frequent travels permitted. He considered himself "wealthy," as he once wrote, "in that I have had half a dozen really close friends, more than most of us are allowed."

Ralph Hustace Hubbard Fourth generation New Yorker, lately of Conroe, Texas, and Greenwich, CT. died on February 27, 1999, in Montgomery, Texas, at the age of 86, .

At the time of his death, he was survived by his wife, Mary Gibson Hubbard, whom he married in 1990; a son, Thomas, and a daughter, Hilary H. Bennett, both of whom were born in Argentina, his first wife, Carol died in 1985.

Also surviving were six grandchildren, a brother-in-law, David Carpenter, of Sawgrass, FL, and numerous nieces and nephews.

Services were held Saturday, March 13, 1999 at Christ's Church, Rye, NY.


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