[1] He was the son of Jane Deakins Serpell of Norfolk, Virginia, and Navy Chaplain Capt Bower Reynolds Patrick.
As a child he and his parents were briefly marooned in 1908 on Christmas Island — now Kiritimati – when the vessel they were traveling on, the Aeon, around on the reef, while in transit from San Francisco to Australia.
Patrick returned to Christmas Island in 1956, as one of two US military observers, during Operation Grapple, a series of UK atomic bomb tests.
During the attack that day, his directive that moored ships store live ammunition in their gun mounts would help the U.S. resistance against the Imperial Japanese Navy.
He later commanded the destroyer USS Preston (DD-795) during World War II from commissioning on 20 March 1944 until 20 September 1945 and participated in the Battles of Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.