Willard Sweetser, 105; WWII admiral
GRAY, Maine - Willard Sweetser, a retired Navy rear admiral who commanded destroyers in combat in World War II, died Friday at the Maine Veterans' Home in Paris at age 105. He was the US Naval Academy's oldest living alumnus.
Admiral Sweetser served aboard the gunboat USS Panay, which in 1937 was attacked by the Japanese while at anchor in the Yangtze River in China.
He later commanded the destroyers USS Lardner and USS Hickox in the Pacific.
His awards included the Silver Star and two Bronze Stars.
Admiral Sweetser, whose parents ran a grocery store in Gray, enrolled in the Naval Academy in 1922, his interest in life at sea mirroring that of ancestors who had been shipmasters.
"I guess, as some young folks do, my father at a young age had a passion for the sea and wanted to serve his country," said Willard Sweetser Jr., one of his two children.
After World War II, Admiral Sweetser served as naval attaché at US embassies in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, postings that involved the gathering of intelligence on the Communist governments then in power.
"He would count smokestacks. He would count airplanes," his son said. "There was an awful lot of subterfuge going on in those days."
Following his retirement in 1956, Admiral Sweetser earned a master's degree from Purdue University and taught mathematics and statistics at LaSalle University in Philadelphia.
After his wife, Martha Callanan, died, Admiral Sweetser remarried. In 1972, he moved back to Gray, where he lived with his second wife, Barbara Bigelow, until her death.
He cowrote a book about his hometown's history.
Admiral Sweetser's caretaker, Elaine Verrill, described him as an independent person who lived a full life.
"When he turned 100, he made a conscious decision not to drive his automobile again. He put his license in a drawer," she said.
Admiral Sweetser's son said his father kept a positive outlook and remained vibrant, even at 105.
"He was reading the Wall Street Journal every day, and his memory was like the memory of an elephant," his son said.
In addition to his son, of Annapolis, Md., Admiral Sweetser leaves a daughter, Ellen Allen, of Stony Brook, N.Y.
A private funeral was planned. 