A Leader in the Military and Classroom

By Jack Saroni

Vincent John Moore

June 9, 1894 – December 9, 1973

The USS Pennsylvania, Flagship of the Atlantic, and where Vincent served for three years.[1] — The USS Pennsylvania, Flagship of the Atlantic, and where Vincent served for three years.[1 ]

While more heroic aspects of military service receive the most attention from the public, the US military is built upon the leadership and experience of the officers who train and instruct future combat officers. Despite discharge from the military in 1923 due to a medical disability, Lieutenant Vincent Moore was among those in the Navy tasked with sharing his knowledge and experience from the Great War with soldiers who fought and died in the Second World War. After his military service, Vincent continued his commitment to education by teaching at both CU Boulder and the Rocky Flats Plant.

Vincent John Moore was born on June 9, 1894, in Minersville, Pennsylvania to Patrick Henry and Bridget Brennan Moore. A town named quite aptly, Minersville grew out of the rich deposits of anthracite present all over the region, leading to a sharp population spike right around the time Vincent was born.[2] An Irish immigrant, Patrick owned and operated a small Inn in Minersville, making the Moores one of the few families without ties to the mining industry.[3] Vincent grew up alongside his older siblings Anna and Thomas, as well as the youngest brother Harold. Not much is known about Vincent’s adolescence, besides that the family hosted a lodger as well as a servant while they were living in Minersville.[4] This servant, a 22-year-old named Mary Elliot, was employed presumably to assist the Moores in operating the inn and raising the children.

After graduating from high school, Vincent decided against remaining in Minersville and eventually taking over the family business; instead, he decided to join the military and attend the Naval Academy. He joined the navy in June of 1913, exactly one year before Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated and the world descended into four years of conflict and bloodshed. Presumably receiving high marks in his mathematics classes, Vincent received his commission from the Naval Academy in 1917. He was first stationed aboard the newly built USS Pennsylvania, at the time the flagship of the Atlantic Fleet.[5] The fresh-faced Vincent spent the First World War serving aboard the battleship as it patrolled the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean. When the war came to an end, the Pennsylvania made a brief stop in France as the ink was still drying on the Treaty of Versailles.

The Crew of the USS Pennsylvania in 1918 – it is likely that Vincent is among the many sailors pictured. [6]

Despite being gone for long periods of time while on the USS Pennsylvania, Vincent married Gladys Neider [7] on April 30, 1921, in Brooklyn, New York.[8] Vincent spent close to four years on the flagship of the fleet until being transferred to the USS S-1, the lead submarine of the United States “S” class of submarine.[9] The couple got married on the very day before Vincent accepted his new post on the S-1. Vincent then spent the next year on the USS S-1, which saw relativity little action during the interwar period, cruising around the Atlantic and Bermuda. Life aboard early submarines was extremely claustrophobic and stressful, with a crew of over 40 sailors and officers jammed into a pressurized tube 100 meters long. Long deployments tested the resolve of brave sailors who served upon the predecessors to the massive nuclear submarines of the Cold War era. In June of 1922, Vincent was promoted to commander of the USS R-9, a responsibility that he carried out with distinction until the following summer.

After leading the submarine for another year, a physical disability forced Vincent to step down as captain of the R-9, and transfer to Fitzsimons General Hospital in Denver. While the specifics of his condition are lost to history, submarines were notorious for the medical and health problems experienced by members of the crew, or as Maritime.org puts it, “Life aboard a submarine is unnatural and unhealthy compared with life on a surface craft.”[10] Because of this, it is more than likely that Vincent’s retirement from the navy was caused by his own service, a cruel twist of fate for a man who dedicated the first 10 years of his adulthood to the US military. Fitzsimons General was one of the largest military hospitals in the United States following the Great War, treating thousands of wounded veterans.[11] While Vincent fortunately never suffered any combat wounds himself, his experience as a solider was significantly impacted by medical issues. This makes his military career even more distinct considering he served his country again 20 years later. Vincent remained at Fitzsimons until he was officially discharged from the navy on February 23, 1924.[12]

While Vincent’s sudden retirement was sad and unfortunate, he and his wife Gladys made the best of a bad situation by settling down in Denver for the rest of their lives. The couple lived briefly in Los Angeles in 1930, where they hosted two guests in their house to supplement rent payments.[13] One of these lodgers was a Jane Warrington, a stage actress trying to make it big in the newly established Hollywood. The Moores would soon return to Denver, where Vincent pursued a career in education specializing in mathematics.

Despite the physical disability that forced his early retirement nearly two decades previous, when the US entered the Second World War, Vincent didn’t hesitate to return to active duty. Given his age of mid-40s and medical issues, the Lieutenant was never deployed overseas, and instead served the entirely of World War Two from the campus of CU Boulder as an officer in the Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) program. The only conflict Vincent ever saw was that of a 1942 football game between Regis University and the NROTC team. The game functioned as a fundraiser for the Naval radio school, of which Vincent was the commanding officer, as over 75% of the proceeds went towards the radio school. The game was a major event in Denver, with “one of the largest crowds in Regis history expected.”[14] The showdown between the two teams also acted as a patriotic and morale boosting event for the public, which was indeed one of the intended functions of the fundraiser. Many civilians saw the game as an opportunity to honor and respect the troops in lieu of actual military service.

The first class of the CU Boulder NROTC Program, 1941 [19]

The Naval ROTC Program was in its infancy when Vincent joined in 1942, having been formed just the year before, with the US military planning for eventual global conflict by opening hundreds more ROTC programs than existed during peacetime.[16] Lieutenant Moore served his country during the war as the lead officer of the Boulder Radio School where he also instructed mathematics classes. While ROTC may appear to play a less central role in the war effort, in reality these programs were essential in training and preparing officers for combat leadership roles throughout both theaters of the war. The Officers Reserve Program still operates out of the CU Boulder campus, continuing the proud legacy of service and education that Lieutenant Moore helped establish.

Photo of Rocky Flats taken during the 1950s. [19]

Vincent diligently served at CU for the entirety of the war, retiring from the navy a year later at the rank of Lieutenant Commander. However, his retirement from the military would not spell the end of Vincent’s service to his country and community. Formerly Lt. Moore almost immediately began teaching at the CU Boulder engineering school, a seemingly lesser responsibility than his previous post as commander.[17] Nevertheless, Vincent excelled as a professor just as he had during his military service. After several years instructing students in mathematics, Vincent transferred to the private sector and got hired by the Dow Chemical Company, working in the education department at the Rocky Flats Plant. The purpose of Rocky Flats was to produce plutonium components for the US nuclear arsenal, not to assemble the actual weapons.[18] While Vincent had no background in physics or chemistry, his experience with mathematics and college-level teaching prepared him well for his new role.

Vincent retired from a long career of service in 1953, having been employed by the US Government for 45 years. Due to a variety of factors, Vincent and Gladys never had any children, yet that didn’t stop them from living their lives to the fullest together in Denver. In his free time, Vincent golfed whenever he had the opportunity, utilizing his membership often at the Boulder Country Club. Aside from his passion for golf, unfortunately, not much else is known about how Vincent and Gladys spent their final years together. Gladys passed away just a few years before Vincent’s own death in 1973. While Vincent was able to manage his medical issues for most of his life, decades of discomfort and complications took a heavy toll on Vincent once he no longer had his lifelong partner with him. After a full life dedicated to his country and educating those around him, Lieutenant Commander Vincent John Moore passed away on December 9, 1973.[20]

Footnotes ↓

[1] “USS Pennsylvania info,” Naval History and Heritage Command, accessed May 23, 2021, https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/photography/us-navy-ships/battleships/pennsylvania-bb-38.html#:~:text=USS%20Pennsylvania%2C%20lead%20ship%20of,into%20the%20early%20%22Twenties%22.&text=Transiting%20the%20Panama%20Canal%20to,the%20newly%2Dorganized%20Battle%20Fleet.

[2] “The History of Minersville,” Minersville Historical Society, accessed May 22, 2021, https://minersvilleonline.com/history/.

[3] “1900 United States Federal Census, entry for Vincent J Moore,” ancestry.com, accessed May 23, 2021, https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/42475654:7602?tid=&pid=&queryId=b7530b67dcb79d427fb424e08f3b28a0&_phsrc=xRr145&_phstart=successSource.

[4] “1900 United States Federal Census, entry for Vincent J Moore," ancestry.com, https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/42475654:7602?tid=&pid=&queryId=b7530b67dcb79d427fb424e08f3b28a0&_phsrc=xRr145&_phstart=successSource.

[5] “USS Pennsylvania info,” Naval History and Heritage Command, accessed May 23, 2021, https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/photography/us-navy-ships/battleships/pennsylvania-bb-38.html#:~:text=USS%20Pennsylvania%2C%20lead%20ship%20of,into%20the%20early%20%22Twenties%22.&text=Transiting%20the%20Panama%20Canal%20to,the%20newly%2Dorganized%20Battle%20Fleet.

[6] “Naval Combat in World War One,” rarehistoricalphotos.com, accessed May 22, 2021, https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/naval-warfare-of-world-war-one.

[7] Records also indicate her maiden was in fact “Xledner” or “Xiedner”. This could be a case of an Americanization of a foreign last name.

[8] “New York, New York US Marriage License Records 1907-2018, entry for Vincent J Moore," ancestry.com, https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/6346998:61406.

[9] “United States Veterans Service and Compensation Files, entry for Vincent J Moore,” ancestry.com, https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/imageviewer/collections/60884/images/41744_3421606190_0764-02886?treeid=&personid=&hintid=&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true&pId=746923.

[10] “Medical Problems in Submarines,” Maritime.org, accessed May 22, 2021, https://maritime.org/doc/submed/chap20.htm.

[11] “Fitzsimons General Hospital,” Colorado Encyclopedia, accessed May 23, 2021, https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/fitzsimons-general-hospital.

[12] “United States Veterans Service and Compensation Files, entry for Vincent J Moore,” ancestery.com, https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/imageviewer/collections/60884/images/41744_3421606190_0764-02886?treeid=&personid=&hintid=&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true&pId=746923.

[13] “1930 United States Federal Census, entry for Vincent J Moore,” ancestry.com, https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/123617011:6224.

[14] “Large Crowd to see Navy and Regis Sunday- Servicemen to be Admitted Free to Colorful Contest,” Denver Post, October 15, 1942, https://infoweb-newsbank-com.du.idm.oclc.org/apps/news/document-view?p=WORLDNEWS&sort=YMD_date%3AD&fld-nav-0=YMD_date&val-nav-0=1924%20-%201942&maxresults=20&f=advanced&val-base-0=%E2%80%9Cvincent%20j%20moore%E2%80%9D&fld-base-0=alltext&docref=image/v2%3A12C7581AC4BD0728%40WHNPX-17E39A3D5C84CF99%402430648-17DF92546B0C1BBB%4027-17DF92546B0C1BBB%40.

[15] “Unit History, Naval Officer Reserve Corps,” University of Colorado, Boulder, accessed May 22, 2021, https://www.colorado.edu/nrotc/department-naval-science/unit-history.

[16] “CU NROTC History,” CU Boulder Midshipman's Information Book, accessed May 23, 2021, https://www.colorado.edu/nrotc/sites/default/files/attached-files/midshipman_information_book.pdf.

[17] “Obituaries- Vincent J. Moore,” Denver Post, December 13, 1974, accessed May 21, 2021, https://infoweb-newsbank-com.du.idm.oclc.org/apps/news/document-view?p=WORLDNEWS&docref=image/v2%3A12C7581AC4BD0728%40WHNPX-1685281A66720E1C%402442031-16851480ED1EFE0C%4036-16851480ED1EFE0C%40&hlterms=%E2%80%9CVincent%20J%20Moore%E2%80%9D&f=basic.

[18] Opened in 1952 as the Cold War heated up in Europe, the plant operated for nearly 40 years until it was shut down following a raid by EPA and FBI agents. Allegations of pollution and incorrect storage procedures led to the plant’s closure, as the area surrounding it is still toxic to this day. file:///C:/Users/tucke/Downloads/RockyFlats_HistoryBook_rev2.pdf.

[19] “Rocky Flats Nuclear Legacy Remains despite Upcoming Settlements and Trail Plans,” Colorado Public Radio, October 3, 2017, accessed May 23, 2021, https://www.cpr.org/show-segment/rocky-flats-nuclear-legacy-remains-despite-upcoming-settlements-and-trail-plans/.

[20] “Obituaries- Vincent J. Moore,” Denver Post, December 13, 1974, accessed May 21, 2021, https://infoweb-newsbank-com.du.idm.oclc.org/apps/news/document-view?p=WORLDNEWS&docref=image/v2%3A12C7581AC4BD0728%40WHNPX-1685281A66720E1C%402442031-16851480ED1EFE0C%4036-16851480ED1EFE0C%40&hlterms=%E2%80%9CVincent%20J%20Moore%E2%80%9D&f=basic.