[2] Born in Pennsylvania and the son of a father who became a professor of Romance languages at Claremont Colleges, John Crowell went to high school in Los Angeles County, California, and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1939 with a degree in geology.
During his study of the geology of part of the San Joaquin Valley, he was offered employment as a geologist by the Shell Oil Company.
For his role in predicting weather and surf conditions for the June 6th 1944 D-Day invasion, Crowell was awarded a Bronze Star Medal.
In the autumn of 1944, in preparation for the Burma campaign of 1944–1945, he was based in Ceylon and was one of the leaders of a U.S. Army convoy across the Ledo Road from India into China.
Upon the end of WW II, he returned to the United States and in 1946 met and married Betty Marie Bruner (1920–2007) in Los Angeles County.
[1] John C. Crowell graduated in 1946 with an MA in oceanographic meteorology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and in 1947 with a PhD in geology from UCLA.
[3] At UCLA Crowell was a professor of geology for 20 years and then in 1966 joined the faculty of the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).