John Strong Triem

TRIEM, JOHN STRONG 92, - of Margate, died peacefully in his sleep at his daughter's home in Cherry Hill, on August 6, 2008. He was born to Vivian Strong and William Triem on April 3, 1916 in Delaware, Ohio and attended high school at the Greenbrier Military Academy in Lewisburg, West Virginia, where he graduated in 1933. He graduated from Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie - Mellon University) in 1938. Upon graduation, he began a lifetime career for the Navy Department designing aircraft carriers and accessory equipment. Except for a brief assignment to private aircraft engineering during the Korean War, he spent his entire career as a civilian engineer in the Navy Department, first at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia in 1939-1940, then at the Main Navy Building in Washington, D.C., until 1956, and then at the National Air Development Center in Johnsville, Pennsylvania, until his retirement in 1970. During World War II and the Korean War, John's principal activity was designing arresting gear for aircraft carriers, and his most important professional achievement was his design of the canted deck for use on aircraft carriers which allowed planes that missed the arresting gear to take off again instead of colliding with parked planes in the forward deck area. During the Vietnam War, John participated in a project in which sound detection devices were dropped by parachute along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. These stealthy microphones picked up the noise of Viet Cong truck traffic and transmitted it back to allied receivers, thus allowing the U.S. to sever enemy transport lines and the timely destruction of enemy war supplies. After his retirement he founded Triem Engineering Services, a private consulting firm, where he continued to work until the 1980's. He spent the last thirty-three years in Margate. John was predeceased by his first wife, Dorothy Helen Egli of Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, and by his second wife, Doris Ilene Jacob of Louisville, Ohio. He is survived by his daughter and son-in-law, Sandra and George Norcross of Cherry Hill; by his son and daughter-in-law Fred W. Triem and Karen Ellingstad of Petersburg, Alaska; by his sister and brother-in-law, Prudence and Frederick Woodward of Lake City, Michigan, by his brother Daniel W. Triem of Las Vegas, Nevada, and by his four grandchildren, Alessandra and Alexander Norcross of Cherry Hill; Kathleen Triem of Ghent, New York; and Carole Triem of Petersburg, Alaska; and by his three great-grandchildren; two nieces; and four nephews. Memorial service and interment will be private. The family respectfully request contributions in his memory be made to the First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19103. PLATT MEMORIAL CHAPELS, Inc.

This obituary was originally published in The Press of Atlantic City.