 After graduating from Yale Law School in 1940, Eugene M. Locke signed the partnership agreement for the Locke law firm on March 15, 1941.After the outbreak of World War II, he left the firm and served for a short period with the Office of Price Administration and then joined the Navy, where he served as a gunnery officer on a destroyer called the USS "Crosby".It participated in landings, among other places, in the Northern Solomons, New Guinea, Leyte Gulf, and Corregidor in the Philippines.