He nearly lost his life when a typhoon hit his Navy aircraft carrier during World War II

By the time the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Ford had already established a law practice in Grand Rapids. Soon after the bombing, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy as an ensign and was assigned to North Carolina as the physical training officer for recruits. Ford kept asking to be sent to a combat unit, so the U.S.S. Monterey, a small aircraft carrier, was sent to the Pacific as a result. He would have earned 10 combat stars by the end of the war as a result of his involvement in fights in locations like Okinawa, Wake, Taiwan, the Philippines, and the Gilbert Islands.

On December 18, 1944, Typhoon Cobra, a strong storm that would destroy three destroyers, damage a huge number of other ships, and injure hundreds of soldiers, struck the Monterey, one of several Navy ships. Ford's obituary in the New York Times stated that the future president nearly perished when the typhoon nearly washed him off the topside deck.