Joseph Peter Adams

JOSEPH PETER

BRIG. GEN. JOSEPH PETER ADAMS, USMC (Ret.), died Wednesday, March 19, 2003 at his home in Pensacola, after two years of declining health. He was 95.

Born in Seattle on November 15, 1907, Gen. Adams was the son of Joseph Adams, a French Canadian surnamed "Adam" from Montreal, who became an American citizen, a blacksmith and a successful gold miner in the Alaska gold rush of the nineties. His mother, Selma Peterson Adams, a seamstress, came from Sweden when she was 16, passing through Ellis Island around 1900, and moving from Duluth to Seattle.

Gen. Adams graduated from the University of Washington with a BA in 1928 and Doctor of Jurisprudence in 1931. In college, he managed the crew team, he was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon and he spent his college summers employed as a coal passer on the ocean liner "Leviathan", seeing the world.

On June 12, 1928, he was appointed Private First Class, V.M.C.R., class six, as a student Naval Aviator Pilot. He graduated with class 37B, Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida, February 1930, and was commissioned a 2nd Lt., USMCR in June, 1930. His flight log records his first flight at NAS, Pensacola on July 29, 1929.

In 1933, at Sand Point NAS in Seattle, Gen. Adams commanded the first Commissioned Marine Reserve Squadron, designated V08-MR. From March, 1941, to February, 1943, he served as Executive Officer and Command Office VN2D8 and Officer in Charge, Ellyson Field, NAS Pensacola.

He served, at the rank of Colonel, as Commanding Officer USMR Air Station, Mojave, CA, from June 1943 until November, 1944, when he left for active duty in the Pacific, where he served as Deputy Commander of the Naval air bases at Okinawa, from "D" Day, April 1, 1945, to November, 1945. He was awarded the Legion of Merit with Combat "V".

After the war, he was appointed the first Director of Aeronautics for the State of Washington, serving until 1949, when President Truman appointed him to the Civil Aeronautics Board.

From 1957 until his retirement, Gen. Adams managed the Association of Local Transport Airlines (ALTA), headquartered in Washington, which included 21 local service, Alaskan, Hawaiian and Caribbean airlines. In 1983, he was designated an "Elder Statesman of Aviation" by the National Aeronautics Association and received the Golden Eagle Award in 1993 from the Society of Senior Aerospace Executives.

Moving to Pensacola in 1980, Gen. Adams was elected a member of the Board of Trustees, Naval Aviation Museum, in 1983.

He was predeceased by his wife, Margaret Hope Bare Adams, whom he married in 1939 and who died in 2000. He is survived by his daughter and son-in-law, Janis and Stanley Crowe of Greenville, SC; grandson, Simon Crowe of Greenville and granddaughter, Kirbie Crowe of Denver, CO.

A service of interment of ashes was held Friday, March 28, at Barrancas National Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, expressions of sympathy may be made to the Naval Aviation Museum, NAS, Pensacola, or to Covenant Hospice of Pensacola.