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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/Surrender of Japan, End of WWII
From Month/Year
August / 1945
To Month/Year
August / 1945
Description The surrender of the Empire of Japan was announced by Imperial Japan on August 15 and formally signed on September 2, 1945, bringing the hostilities of World War II to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy was incapable of conducting major operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent. Together with the United Kingdom and China, the United States called for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945—the alternative being "prompt and utter destruction". While publicly stating their intent to fight on to the bitter end, Japan's leaders (the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War, also known as the "Big Six") were privately making entreaties to the still-neutral Soviet Union to mediate peace on terms more favorable to the Japanese. Meanwhile, the Soviets were preparing to attack Japanese forces in Manchuria and Korea (in addition to southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands) in fulfillment of promises they had secretly made to the United States and the United Kingdom at the Tehran and Yalta Conferences.
