Turner [1917-2001] was born in Madison, Wisconsin.
His father was an electrical engineer for the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin. Turner attended Nakoma Grade School and Wisconsin High School, graduating in 1935. He then attended the University of Wisconsin, earning a bachelor's in geology and civil engineering, and a master's in geology. In 1941, before Pearl Harbor, Turner volunteered for the Navy, hoping to become an officer. His first assignment was as a research analyst at the Navy Hydrographic Office in Washington D.C. From May 1942 to November 1942, Turner, now a lieutenant, went on surveying missions in the Canadian Arctic. In 1943, he was reassigned to the Pacific where he carried out dangerous reconnaissance missions as a Navy "frogman," earning a bronze star. In 1944, the hydrographic survey unit was given its own ship, the USS John Blish. While on leave in 1944, Turner married a WAVE he first met in Washington. His wife, Ruth, was a home economics teacher from Milwaukee, and both of them returned to school on the G.I. Bill after the war. Turner got his Ph.D. in geology at the University of Wisconsin in 1948. Starting in 1949, he worked for the Atomic Energy Commission in Colorado. He moved to several states, including Wyoming and Michigan, throughout his career as a geologist, mining engineer, professor, and volunteer fire fighter. For many years, he worked as a professor of geology at Eastern Michigan University before his retirement to Englewood, Colorado where he died in 2001.
From the description of Oral history interview with Daniel S. Turner, [sound recording], 1995. (Wisconsin Veterans Museum Research Center). WorldCat record id: 680065979
