Emerson Cole joined the Navy the day after the Pearl Harbor invasion on December 8, 1941 and was sent to General Electric to work with their radar development programs until he was called up for active duty in 1944.
Emerson Cole as skipper patrolled the coast for holdouts with a Japanese prisoner on the bow of the boat who called out to the shoreline over a speaker saying "It is over, don't shoot!"
Surrender terms for the Dutch West Indies were signed on an Australian cruiser and then skipper Lt.(jg) Emerson Cole sailed PT-171 back to the Philippines where the boats were burned to the waterline while their crews awaited the trip home.
After the war, Cole became a television commercial writer, director, and producer at Benton & Bowles Advertising Agency working directly under Shepherd Mead, author of the best-selling book How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
[1] Cole produced a four-hour radio documentary about the December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor invasion which has been required listening for some Moore County, NC school children.