Description:
Judge Mark Addison, born in the early 1910s in Barnegat, Ocean County, New Jersey, grew up in a Jewish immigrant family whose parents had emigrated from Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire). His father, originally trained in a yeshiva, transitioned into business, operating a bakery and later a ready‑to‑wear and furniture store in Barnegat, while his mother helped sustain the enterprise after his father's death in 1931.
Addison attended Barnegat High School, graduating in 1932 during the depths of the Great Depression, and enrolled at Rutgers University in 1933 after delaying a year for financial reasons. At Rutgers, he studied liberal arts, participated in ROTC and the Rifle Team and joined the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity before graduating in 1937 and entering the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
After completing his legal training, Addison began work in New Jersey, but enlisted in the US Army Signal Corps in March 1942. He trained at Camp Crowder, Missouri, and at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, where he completed radio repair school and Signal Corps Officer Candidate School, receiving a commission in December 1942. He initially served in administrative and security roles at Lexington Signal Depot (Kentucky) and Dayton Signal Depot (Ohio).
The Army later transferred him to the Corps of Military Police; after training in Battle Creek, Michigan, and Abilene, Texas, he deployed overseas in 1944 with the 1364th Military Police Company (Aviation), attached to the US Tenth Air Force in India and later the Fourteenth Air Force in China.
In India, Addison operated from bases including Barrackpore and Dinjan in Assam, supporting air supply operations over "the Hump" into China. He later attended British intelligence training in Karachi before transferring to China in late 1944. There, he commanded detachments at airfields near Kunming and Yunnanyi, supervising base security, coordinating with Chinese Nationalist forces and overseeing Military Police operations. His unit operated in rugged terrain at elevations above 7,000 feet and supported air operations involving B‑25, B‑26 and P‑51 aircraft.
After Japan's surrender, Addison served briefly as provost marshal in Hankow (Wuhan), managing discipline among American personnel. He returned to the United States in late 1945 via Shanghai and was discharged at Fort Dix. He practiced law in New Jersey from 1946 until his appointment to the bench in 1967, where he presided over criminal, civil and family cases.