Harold Mott Willcox was born January 24, 1925 in Philadelphia, the son of Mary de Forest Geary and Harold Mott Willcox.
He attended Episcopal Academy; received an honorary scholarship to attend St. Paul's School in Concord, N. H., from which he graduated. He then entered Yale University which offered an accelerated course due to war time. At 19, half-way through his Junior year, he was commissioned into the United States Navy, due to the fact that President Roosevelt had declared a state of emergency.
During World War II Willcox served in the Navy in both the Atlantic and Pacific Theatres and on L.S.T. Amphibious Craft.
Shortly after D-Day in France in the North Sea waters off England his convoy of eleven ships were torpedoed and the twin L.S.T. was blown up and severed. Lowering a life boat he proceeded with several of the crew to the disaster in waters heavy with debris and torpedo infested. Boarding one half of the stricken vessel, the nineteen year old officer, with the help of his sailors, buried the dead at sea, lowered the mained and the wounded to his life boat and started the perilous voyage back to his own ship. On the return his propellor became fouled with debris. To Save his tiny craft bearing his precious cargo, he dove overboard, freed his propellor, reboarded, and returned to his own L.S.T. As a result of this action he was awarded the Bronze Star.
He was later transferred to the Pacific Theatre of War where he served until V-J Day.
At the termination of World War II he was promoted to Lieutenant; given command of his own L.S.T. in Shanghai on his 21st birthday. His ship was known as the finest maintained in the Navy at that time. His first assignment was to transport 1,000 troops to Manchuria. The waters were stormy, his oriental passengers became sick in overcrowded quarters, his gas tanks broke loose on the top deck, yet he landed on the Manchurian shore without a mishap.
After nine months of this type of duty, he was ordered back to the United States. He headed his ship across the Pacific waters which he had grown to know so well. He was sorely pressed by a tidal wave at his wake but brought his ship home to safety. He was then honorably discharged from the Navy early in the year of 1946.
When World War II was over he spent a year at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. He then returned and received his degree from Yale University and entered Harvard Law School. Here he served on the Board of Review and was winner of the Mock Trial Ames Competition in 1951. After graduation he went with the law firm of Covington and Burling in Washington, D. C. Later he moved to Boston, Massachusetts where he was associated with the firm of Herrick, Smith, Donald, Farley, Ketchum.
In 1962 he took an absence from his firm to enter politics, having been chosen to represent the Crime Commission of Massachusetts as Chief Counsel. At this time Willcox conducted Grand Jury Hearings that led to the indictment and conviction of four governors' counselors for bribery. In 1966 he rejoined his original law firm with whom he remained until he formed his own law firm last Fall.
Willcox dearly loved the sea. Several years after the war he had a thirty-five foot sail boat built in Germany. He named her the "Lapwing" and on her he sailed the seas. He placed in the Fastnet Club Race in Great Britain in the 1950's.
In his latter years he became a polo enthusiast and played with the Myopia Hunt Club in Hamilton, Massachusetts where he resided.
He was prominent in legal and political circles. He stood for justice and world events disturbed him deeply.
In 1965 his eldest son asked him to write of his experiences in China after World War II. Subsequently he wrote a book entitled "LETTER TO A BOY".
In it he stated emphatically that had the United States kept up their good relationship with China instead of withdrawing all armed forces, there would never have been the long years of war in the Far East with Korea and Vietnam.
When he had completed the book he commented, " I have put a number of copies in the vault so that twenty-five years from now the younger generation will know I was right".
Ironically on April 21, 1975, the day that Vietnam fell, he died.