JOHN A. WALSH

1924 - 2020

WALSH, John A. Rear Admiral John Amand Walsh, USN Retired Rear Admiral John Amand Walsh, USN Retired of Framingham, MA, died Friday, April 17, 2020 after a short illness from the COVID-19 virus. He was ninety-six. Jack Walsh spent 33 years in the U.S. Navy, serving as an intelligence officer and a submarine commander. Jack Walsh was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on January 3, 1924, the son of Captain John A. Walsh, USN and Odette Fautrat Walsh. He attended high school at Portsmouth Abbey School, Portsmouth, RI, class of 1941 and graduated from the Naval Academy in 1945. He served on the cruiser USS Columbus (CA-74) during the Second World War. As a young officer in 1949, Jack served aboard the USS Carp (SS-338) on an expedition that began the first attempts for submarines to navigate under the polar icecap. In 1954, Jack served as an assistant naval attache at the American Embassy in Rome, Italy, working for Ambassador Clare Boothe Luce. While in Italy, Jack assisted in discussions with Auguste Piccard, which lead to the Navy acquiring the bathyscaphe, Trieste. Jack was commanding officer first in 1959 on the diesel submarine, USS Entemedor (SS-340). In 1964, on the USS Dace (SSN-607), a nuclear attack submarine, he supervised its construction and then commissioned the ship into the Navy as its first skipper. Later, he commanded the ballistic missile submarine, USS Thomas Jefferson (SSN-618). In Charleston, SC, Jack served as Commodore of Submarine Squadron Four, work for which he was awarded the Legion of Merit Medal in 1972. Jack earned a Masters degree in economics from the University of Maryland. As rear admiral, he served as Assistant Director of the National Security Agency and Chief of Staff of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Jack married Sheila Hardwick Keliher on October 8, 1948. After his retirement from the U.S. Navy, Jack and Sheila settled in Framingham, Massachusetts, for 37 years until her death in 2015. Until establishing roots in Framingham, they had as a navy family moved on an average of every year and a half. Jack was very active in his adopted town, now the City of Framingham, serving on the Historical Society and other city organizations. For 10 years, Jack served as a vice-president for New England Electric, now owned by the National Grid. Jack Walsh is survived by a daughter, Keliher Walsh Eckhouse, a son, David, and six grandchildren, Suzanne, Sarah, Kate and Jamie Walsh, and Zander and Gabe Eckhouse. A son, John Christopher, who passed away in 2018, served for seven years as the representative from Framingham in the Massachusetts state legislature. Jack will be remembered by his family and friends with a deep sense of loss, combined with the knowledge that he lived a very full, active, and interesting life. He will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery along with his wife, Sheila.

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