USS Crosby. It participated in landings, among other places, in the Northern Solomons, New Guinea, Leyte Gulf, and Corregidor in the Philippines. The Crosby was a Wickes-class destroyer, launched in 1918 and recommissioned in 1939, that was converted to a high-speed transport in 1943 and earned a Navy Unit Commendation and 10 battle stars during World War II. After leaving the Navy, Eugene M. Locke returned to the firm shortly before his father’s death in March 1946 and then jointly began managing the firm with Maurice Purnell, a Harvard Law graduate and son of Eugene P. Locke’s sister, Ginevra Locke Purnell, and her husband, Charles S. Purnell. While Eugene P. Locke was typically quite formal, not using first names but using the title "Mr." even with close associates and subordinates, Eugene M. Locke was flamboyant and colorful. "He seems early on to have displayed an independence that must have been somewhat distressing to his family and would have been completely out of character for both his grandfather and his father. During one summer in his mid-teens, he is said to have taken to the road in hobo fashion, working as an itinerant farm laborer and in other similar jobs. While in the University of Texas, his family, wanting him to be well-dressed, would send him boxes of new clothes which he would promptly re-box and send back." Among Eugene M. Locke’s accomplishments at the firm were the organization of the Pan American Sulfur Company, the organization of Wallace Properties (which became Lomas & Nettleton Financial Corp.), and representation in the development of what later became Trinity Industries. The 1972 annual report of Lomas & Nettleton said of Locke, "Perhaps the most significant clue to his extraordinary capacity for grasping problems quickly and seeing them through to a solution, and a clue also to the warmth and natural joy of his temperament, is that no one going to him with what looked like trouble ever left his presence without a smile, a renewed optimism, and a better understanding." The 1972 report noted that Locke had served as chairman of the board of the company from 1960 to 1963 and as chairman of the executive committee from 1963 to 1967. Lomas Financial was at one point the nation’s largest mortgage banker under the name Lomas & Nettleton, but Lomas Financial filed for bankruptcy protection in 1989. By 2015, Locke Lord had about