James Edward Earheart Jr. was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on 25 April 1913 and was of German descent.

During Operation Torch, the Allied amphibious landings in North Africa, on 8 November 1942, Private First Class Earheart was a member of a naval antisabotage party embarked in a British warship which was damaged during the entry into Oran, Algeria.

Heroically, he volunteered, in the face of continuous Vichy French shelling, to swim to a harbor tug whose movements were endangering the men abandoning the warship.

Earheart conducted shakedown training at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, during which World War II ended with the surrender of Japan on 15 August 1945.

Earheart was decommissioned at Green Cove Springs on 29 April 1946 and berthed there with the Florida Group of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet in the St. Johns River.