He was born as one of three children in Toledo, Ohio, to Faye and Lucille Mallo Revells. His father was a painter who often worked on bridges and buildings. Among his earliest memories are of how the family moved often during the Depression, and sometimes had little to eat. Although he helped support the family by waiting on tables after school, he also found time to play baseball. Before graduating from Central High School (he later earned a GED), James joined the U.S. Navy and reported to Great Lakes Navy Training Station for boot camp and gunner's mate school. In San Francisco he was assigned to the USS Daly (DD-519), a destroyer, where he worked in the magazine and handling rooms. The Daly sailed for the Leyte Gulf for training, then joined the invasion forces at Iwo Jima in February of 1945. While the ship served as part of the screen around carriers, James witnessed a kamikaze sink the Bismarck Sea (CVE-95). The Daly picked up about 25 of the crew. Some 50 suicide planes, he says, attacked his destroyer, killing three sailors. He believes his ship's gunners shot down "something like sixteen planes." James' job was as a fuser--to set fuses of a five-inch, 38-millimeter gun In the Okinawa campaign the Daly served as a picket ship that alerted vessels in the island's harbor to incoming enemy aircraft. James recalls long work days, ranging from 8 to 11 a.m. and from 1 to 4 p.m., in addition to eight-hour watches, often in early morning hours. "Never had a day off until the war ended," he says. After Okinawa, the Daly patrolled the China coast, then escorted a hospital ship into Sasebo Harbor, where American POWs were brought aboard. "Some of them looked like they were only half-alive. It was a sad sight," James comments. After the Japanese surrender, James went ashore and traveled through Nagasaki about six weeks after the bombing. "There was nothing, nothing there, nothing there just dirt," he reports. The Daly returned to the West Coast in early November of 1945, and sailed to Charleston, South Carolina, where it was put in mothballs. After spending Christmas at home, he was assigned to another ship (he doesn't recall the name) until his discharge on May 20, 1946. James married Angela Isetta on May 29, 1948. They would have four daughters, and later, eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. Isetta passed away in 1981. He married Mary Massa in 1989. James spent a 41-year career with Libbey-Owens-Ford Company.