 He was consecrated on 18 September 1945, with Archbishop Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, Titular Archbishop of Laodicea in Phrygia, serving as Consecrator, and Bishop Eugene Joseph McGuinness, Titular Bishop of Ilium, and Bishop Bartholomew Joseph Eustace, Bishop of Camden, serving as Co-Consecrators.He arrived in Guam on 23 October 1945, shortly after the end of the World War II, flying in on the personal plane of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, who was leading the post-war military administration on the island.The vicariate apostolic was in ruins at that time, with most of Guam's churches damaged beyond repair, all the American missionary priests still held captive in Japan, and only one Chamorro, or native Guamanian, priest remaining, with no Chamorro nuns left.