This Military Service Page was created by Felix Cervantes, III (Admiral Ese), BM2

Service Number: 314564

Birth and Early Life:

Harold was born in Ranger County, Texas on June 10, 1922; his father Arthur worked in oil & gas production while his mother, Dora, kept house for Harold and his siblings. The Hopes moved to Hutchinson, Texas before 1930. Harold befriended a schoolmate named Dave Goldsmith; the two often went around town together getting into teenage scrapes. He was in love with life & everything that happened was hilarious, wrote Goldsmith If things didn't happen, he would stir things up so that something would happen. He was a very intelligent boy but made poor grades because he was too busy having fun. While almost all of the boys went bare headed, he always wore a hat cocked at an outlandish angle. So many amusing things happened when he was around that he was given the name Hopeless.' Hope and Goldsmith attended Philips High School in Borger, and got up to no end of trouble. Hope was a saxophone player in the marching band, and was always trying to catch the of the pretty majorette. When his prank whistle calls fouled up her formation one too many times, he not only attracted her attention but the business end of her baton, which she broke over his head. Hopeless and Goldsmith had many other adventures, including nighttime rat hunts, building their own apartment out of a disused auto shed, and an outhouse explosion that sent Hopeless flying through the door, burned and shaken but alive. Despite his shenanigans and poor grades, Hope graduated from Phillips in 1939 (the Borger Daily Herald notes that he performed a saxophone solo at the commencement ceremony) and went on to attend Texas Technical College, where he intended to major in Arts & Sciences. However, Goldsmith recalled, he was having some kind of love problems with a sweet young thing he had met at school. When he was home for Christmas (1940), he decided he would go in military service to avoid his problems.

Enlistment and Boot Camp:

Harold Hope was not alone in wanting to leave school for the service; he was accompanied by several school friends who all piled into a car, drove across the state border to Oklahoma, and enlisted en masse. Although his friend Dave Goldsmith believed he must have given his drill instructors fits, Hope not only completed boot camp but was selected to serve with the Marine detachment aboard the USS Arizona. He joined them at Pearl Harbor sometime in 1941.

Wartime Service:

Private Hope served aboard the Arizona for the balance of 1941. He had a furlough coming up in December; Goldsmith recalled that, though Hope was now a rough and tough Marine, he was still a teenager & he was looking forward to getting home for Christmas.

Hope, Harold Wyatt, Pvt