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Steven Loomis (SaigonShipyard), IC3
to remember
Johansen, Gustave Norman, Sr., RADM USN(Ret).
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Contact Info
Home Town Newport, RI
Last Address Alexandria, VA
Date of Passing Mar 11, 2003
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
Wall/Plot Coordinates 1 112-E RH
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
Gustave Norman Johansen
Rear Admiral, United States Navy
Gustave Norman Johansen, 97, a retired Navy rear admiral, World War II veteran and former commander of the Naval Security Station in Washington who later helped his wife organize a musical competition for children, died March 11 at the Goodwin House West retirement home in Falls Church. He had bronchitis.
Adm. Johansen, who had a 34-year military career, was a Naval Academy graduate and a witness to two historic World War II events. He was assigned to the temporary flagship USS Jarvis at Pearl Harbor when Japanese fighter planes attacked Dec. 7, 1941, killing nearly 2,400 servicemen.
At the end of the war, he was aboard an amphibious force flagship in Tokyo Bay as it passed the battleship USS Missouri, where formal surrender ceremonies were being staged.
Between those events, he commanded destroyers and participated in the recapture of the Solomon Islands.
His post-World War II assignments included command of a division of destroyers modified to sweep mines and service on the staff of the commander of the Amphibious Force, Pacific Fleet.
He also served on the staff of the chief of naval operations, and then commanded the Naval Security Station in Washington before retiring from active military duty in 1959.
He next worked about six years for private aerospace firms and then 10 years for the Navy's Electronic Systems Command.
In retirement, he volunteered to serve on the Arlington County Services Board as well as a county committee that monitored the operations of a nursing home.
Admiral Johansen's military decorations included the Bronze Star, USS Halford 1944. He was a member of the American Legion, the Disabled American Veterans, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the Naval Institute, Pearl Harbor Survivors and the National Association of Retired Federal Employees.
World War II/Asiatic-Pacific Theater/Attack on Pearl Harbor
From Month/Year
December / 1941
To Month/Year
December / 1941
Description The attack on Pearl Harbor, also known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor, the Hawaii Operation or Operation AI by the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, and Operation Z during planning, was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, on the morning of December 7, 1941. The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II.
Japan intended the attack as a preventive action to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Empire of Japan planned in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. Over the next seven hours there were coordinated Japanese attacks on the U.S.-held Philippines, Guam and Wake Island and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
The attack commenced at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian Time. The base was attacked by 353 Imperial Japanese fighter planes, bombers, and torpedo planes in two waves, launched from six aircraft carriers. All eight U.S. Navy battleships were damaged, with four sunk. All but Arizona were later raised, and six were returned to service and went on to fight in the war. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship, and one minelayer. 188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed; 2,403 Americans were killed and 1,178 others were wounded. Important base installations such as the power station, shipyard, maintenance, and fuel and torpedo storage facilities, as well as the submarine piers and headquarters building (also home of the intelligence section) were not attacked. Japanese losses were light: 29 aircraft and five midget submarines lost, and 64 servicemen killed. One Japanese sailor, Kazuo Sakamaki, was captured.
The attack came as a profound shock to the American people and led directly to the American entry into World War II in both the Pacific and European theaters. The following day, December 8, the United States declared war on Japan. Domestic support for non-interventionism, which had been fading since the Fall of France in 1940,[19] disappeared. Clandestine support of the United Kingdom (e.g., the Neutrality Patrol) was replaced by active alliance. Subsequent operations by the U.S. prompted Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy to declare war on the U.S. on December 11, which was reciprocated by the U.S. the same day.
From the 1950s, several writers alleged that parties high in the U.S. and British governments knew of the attack in advance and may have let it happen (or even encouraged it) with the aim of bringing the U.S. into war. However, this advance-knowledge conspiracy theory is rejected by mainstream historians.
There were numerous historical precedents for unannounced military action by Japan. However, the lack of any formal warning, particularly while negotiations were still apparently ongoing, led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to proclaim December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy". Because the attack happened without a declaration of war and without explicit warning, the attack on Pearl Harbor was judged by the Tokyo Trials to be a war crime.
