OBITUARIES : Adm. Holmberg, 71; WWII Pilot

Paul H. Holmberg, a retired Navy rear admiral who helped develop the napalm bomb and was one of the most highly decorated carrier dive bomber pilots during World War II, is dead at age 71.

Holmberg was twice awarded the Navy Cross, an award for valor, for service in the Pacific. He earned his first Navy Cross flying from the carrier Yorktown in the Battle of Midway in a dive bomb attack on a Japanese aircraft carrier, and his second for helping to sink the carrier Ryujo in the battle for Guadalcanal.

In 1943, Holmberg was assigned to the Naval Air Test Center at Patuxent River, Md., where he helped develop the napalm incendiary bomb. When he retired in 1971, he was vice commander of the Naval Air Systems Command.

A native of Stanberry, Mo., he died of cancer at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland on July 27. He is survived by his wife, five children and five grandchildren.