sentences:  He was born in Queens, New York on July 19, 1913, to Herman Thompson and Gertrude Emma Baatz.While attending the Brooklyn Law School in 1936 he became a probationary firefighter, later being promoted to a lieutenant in a hook-and-ladder company.In 1938 Mayor Fiorello La Guardia appointed him as an assistant legal counsel to the New York City Fire Department where he prosecuted fire-code violators.