21903 TWLS summer2000 - Texas Wesleyan School of Law - Texas ...

Story by John Veilleux
“After
finishing
operational
training, I
stayed on
there as a
flight
instructor for
almost a year.
That’s when I
tentatively
decided to
pursue some
kind of
teaching
career after
the war. Our
instructional
methods
were quite
different from
teaching law,
of course, but
there were
also many
fascinating
similarities.”
Wylie H. Davis
Visiting
Professor
bar trek:
a 52-year trip
■ For Visiting Professor Wylie Davis, the long journey
has truly been its own reward
Wylie H. Davis’ bonding with the law
spans some eight decades, dating
back to 1939 when he enrolled in
Mercer University School of Law in Macon,
Ga., with the goal of becoming a trial lawyer.
He had previously decided to abandon his
pre-medical education as “too confining.”
His new goal, however, never quite
materialized. Davis left law school after one
year and signed on with the U.S. Navy as an
officer candidate, serving on continuous active
duty until November 1945. He ultimately
retired as a legal specialist in the Naval
Reserve with the rank of lieutenant
commander. But that came much later.
The Initial Move Toward Teaching
As strange as it may sound, his post-war
teaching career in the law might never have
happened but for one fateful day in January
1943 when his ship, the USS Chicago, was
sunk by Japanese aircraft-launched torpedoes.
“The Japanese sank us about 60 miles south
of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands,”
Davis said. “They were trying to evacuate
their remaining troops on Guadalcanal, and
we were in the area to interdict the
evacuation. My ship took six torpedoes, four
in a dusk attack and two the next day. That
finished us off.”
His ship lost about 90 men from a crew of
1,100. Ironically, this grievous loss of both
ship and shipmates cleared the way for
approval in the Bureau of Naval Personnel for
Davis’ orders to flight training, which his
skipper aboard the USS Chicago had
disapproved, along with about a dozen other
such applications by the ship’s junior officers,
on the reasonable ground that nobody could
be spared from a recently refitted warship just
returned to service in a combat zone in the
Southwest Pacific.
Although Davis didn’t know it at the time,
his flight training would evolve into a 52-year
commitment to teaching law.
“I started my primary flight training here at
the Naval Air Station in Grand Prairie and
finished up at Pensacola, Fla., in December
1943,” he said. “Then I went to Jacksonville,
Fla., for operational training in multi-engine
patrol aircraft. After finishing operational
training, I stayed on there as a flight
instructor for almost a year. That’s when I
tentatively decided to pursue some kind of
teaching career after the war. Our
instructional methods were quite different
from teaching law, of course, but there were
also many fascinating similarities, especially a
meshing of urgently practical skills with
challenging theoretical components.”
A Full and Distinguished Career
With a new sense of direction, Davis left
active duty in late 1945 after serving as a
patrol-plane commander in the Aleutians and
returned to Mercer University in March 1946
to complete his J.D. program on a fast-track
that allowed him to graduate in August 1947.
He then enrolled in the LL.M. program at
Harvard Law School, while passing up a
couple of practice-entry opportunities in his
hometown, and received his degree in June
1948.
During the Mercer period, Davis further
whetted his pedagogical appetite by teaching
freshman English courses at the university for
an academic year.
During one quarter, in fact, he taught 15
hours of English (three sections) and carried
27 hours of law.
“It was tough,” he said. “But like thousands
of other World War II veterans, I was playing
an intensive game of catch up.”
Davis began teaching law at the University
of Arkansas on Aug. 20, 1948, where he
would spend the next seven years as an
assistant, associate and then full professor
teaching contracts, constitutional law,
6 Wesle esle esley esle an an La Lawy La wy wyer wy er • Summer 2000 Texas Wesleyan University School of Law