George W. Grider - Naval Career

Naval Career

After Grider's commission as an Ensign, he was assigned to the USS Mississippi (BB-41), as catapult officer, and subsequently to the USS Rathburne (DD-113).

After this service Grider was assigned to the Navy's Submarine Warfare School, and following his successful completion of its requirements was assigned to one of the World War II era's most accomplished submarines, the USS Skipjack (SS-184).

Grider was serving as an instructor at the Fleet Sonar School in San Diego, California at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, and then assigned to a submarine deployed in the defense of San Diego during the time after the attack when both naval and civilian officials wondered if the attack was to be followed by an attempted Japanese invasion of the West Coast.

Subsequently, Grider was assigned to the USS Wahoo (SS-238) as Engineering Officer, serving behind Dudley W. Morton and Richard O'Kane, and then to two billets as Executive Officer, on the USS Pollack (SS-180), and the USS Hawkbill (SS-366). After this, he was given command of the USS Flasher (SS-249), and then USS Cubera (SS-347). Grider told the story of his World War II experiences in the submarine service in the book War Fish which he wrote with Lydel Sims, published in 1958 by Little, Brown and Company.

Grider was forced to retire from active naval service at the rank of Captain in 1947 after suffering a heart attack. He then enrolled in the law school of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia where he was graduated with a law degree in 1950 and then, subsequent to his admission to the Tennessee bar, began the practice of law in Memphis.