Ships
- USS Lewis Hancock (DD-675) Captain from 8 December 1945
Floyd Charles Lawrence was a lieutenant (junior grade) in the United States Navy. On 8 December 1945 he became captain of the destroyer Lewis Hancock. Japan had already surrendered, and the ship had finished her wartime cruising.
Lewis Hancock (DD-675) was a Fletcher-class destroyer built at Kearny, New Jersey, and commissioned on 29 September 1943 under Charles Huntington Lyman. From Pearl Harbor she screened fast carriers through the Marshalls, the Marianas, and the Philippines. On picket duty in the Battle of Leyte Gulf she joined in the sinking of a Japanese destroyer. In February and March 1945 she took part in raids on the Japanese home islands, among them strikes on Tokyo and on the Kobe-Osaka area, and in the March raid she was credited with her fifth and sixth enemy aircraft. She supported the Okinawa landings from 1 April until she started home on 10 May. Sixteen months in the Pacific left her with four casualties and her hull intact. She entered San Francisco on 6 July 1945.
William Marvin Searles relieved Lyman on 14 March 1944 and commanded Lewis Hancock through Leyte, the strikes on Japan, and Okinawa. On 15 May 1945, as the ship was bound for the West Coast, he turned her over to Richard Edward Babb, who had her for the voyage home, a yard period, and the first weeks after the surrender. She reached San Diego on 7 September 1945. The command then changed in short stretches while the destroyer was prepared for reserve. John B. Wilkes was captain from 25 October to 1 November 1945, and LT Louis L. Lesesne held the duty from 1 November until 8 December.
Lawrence relieved Lesesne on 8 December 1945 and remained a lieutenant (junior grade) while he was captain. He had Lewis Hancock through the last weeks of her first commission. On 10 January 1946 the ship was decommissioned at San Diego and laid up in reserve, and that day closed his command. She stayed out of commission until 19 May 1951, when another officer brought her back into service at Long Beach.