Joe Rollins - Early Years, Education, Military

Early Years, Education, Military

Rollins was born to Joseph Guy Rollins and the former Ethel Stratton in Merit in Hunt County near Dallas at the home of his maternal grandparents, Robert B. Stratton and the former Julia Hardy. Rollins graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio. In 1938, he completed his bachelor's degree at Texas A&M University in College Station. He thereafter earned his law degree in 1941 from Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

During World War II, Rollins enlisted in the United States Navy even before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. From 1943–1945, he was the commanding officer of the U.S.S. Curlew AM 69. In October 1943, he directed a group of minesweepers that successfully cleared the Caribbean entrance to the Panama Canal of German submarine-laid naval mines which had shut down the waterway for two critical weeks of the war. Rollins received a letter of commendation for his "fine seamanship under difficult conditions". After the war, Rollins was active in the Naval Reserve for eleven years and was commanding officer of the Reserve Electronics Unit in Sherman in north Texas.