Ships
- USS Erben (DD-631) Captain, 18 December 1943 – 3 March 1945
Morgan Slayton was born in San Antonio, Texas, on 13 July 1911, the son of Charles and Louisa Slayton. By 1920 the family was living in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, and he grew up near Annapolis. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy and began his sea duty in the battleship Nevada.
He was a lieutenant by 22 May 1941. On 7 December 1941 he was serving in the cruiser Louisville, and in the opening weeks of the war he took part in the Navy’s first raid on the Marshall Islands. He was advanced to temporary lieutenant commander on 1 October 1942.
On 18 December 1943 he took command of the Fletcher-class destroyer Erben, relieving Joseph Henry Nevins. The ship had been commissioned at Bath, Maine, the previous May. By the time Slayton came aboard she was already with the Pacific Fleet, having screened carriers in the Gilberts and picked up aviators from the water. On 1 January 1944 he was made a temporary commander and remained her commanding officer.
Through 1944 and into early 1945, Erben stayed with the Central Pacific drive. The destroyer’s work was the hard routine of a fast carrier screen and an amphibious fleet: anti-aircraft guard, plane guard, and close support as the campaign moved through the Marianas and on to the Philippines. Slayton held the command until 3 March 1945, when he turned the ship over to William Hutton Snyder. Stanley P. Wyatt commanded Erben later that year, after the fighting in the Pacific had ended.
Slayton’s next destroyer was Floyd B. Parks, which he commanded from 31 July 1945 to 10 May 1946. That tour began after Japan’s surrender, and the ship’s duty was the quieter work of a fleet standing down.
From 1947 to 1949 he was naval attaché at the American embassy in Shanghai, and he was in that post as Communist armies closed on the city and took it. Later he commanded Escort Squadron Eight and served as deputy chief of staff to Carrier Division 14. The tour he valued most was command of the heavy cruiser Des Moines. While he had her, he hosted President Dwight D. Eisenhower for a four-day cruise.
He retired in 1963 as a captain. He drew constantly, read deeply in ancient history, and after leaving the Navy taught at the University of Maryland. When he retired from teaching he worked with the historical committee in Annapolis, the Sons of the American Revolution, and the Military Order of the World Wars. He remained unmarried. He died at Edgewater, Maryland, on 26 June 1992, at the age of 80, and was buried in the Naval Academy Cemetery.