Ships
- USS Hall (DD-583) Captain from 31 May 1945
John Daly Pye Hodapp, Jr., was born in Manila on 4 February 1917, the son of John and Lenore (Marsh) Hodapp. His father was a naval officer, and the son followed him into the United States Navy. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1939.
In 1941 he married Clara Freiheit in Honolulu. He was at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 and survived the Japanese attack. During the war he served in Lexington, Farragut, and Abner Read, and he was executive officer of Irwin. For his wartime service he received the Bronze Star Medal and the Navy Commendation Medal, each with the combat distinguishing device, and a Navy Unit Commendation.
On 31 May 1945, with the rank of lieutenant commander, Hodapp became captain of Hall (DD-583). He relieved Laurence Charles Baldauf. The Fletcher-class destroyer had been commissioned at the Boston Navy Yard on 6 July 1943 with John Francis Delaney in command. In the two years that followed she took part in operations from the Marshall Islands, New Guinea, and the Bonins through the Palaus, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.
Hodapp assumed command while Hall was still on the Okinawa campaign. The ship was back off the island by 13 June 1945. On 16 June her crew saw the destroyer Twiggs strike a mine near the beach, and Hall took 48 survivors from the water. Detached on 23 June, she sailed for the United States. She was in overhaul at San Pedro, California, when Japan surrendered, and she afterward reported to San Diego for inactivation. Hall was decommissioned on 10 December 1946.
After the war Hodapp commanded Lofberg. In Hector he served first as executive officer and later as commanding officer. He was operations officer in Bremerton, and he served as a plans officer on the staff of Commander, Amphibious Force, Atlantic Fleet.
Ashore he was associate professor of naval science with the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps unit at the University of California, Berkeley. In the early 1950s he commanded the Naval Ammunition Depot at Indian Island, Washington. In 1958, while assigned to the Military Assistance Advisory Group on Taiwan, he received the Secretary of the Army Commendation Ribbon. He retired from the Navy in 1960 as a commander.
Clara Hodapp died in 1974. The following year he married Alexandra Grieco in San Francisco. He lived in Great Falls, Montana, and died there in 2008, at the age of 91, of heart failure.