Norvell G. Ward, 92; Rear Admiral Headed Naval Forces During Escalation in Vietnam

Retired Navy Rear Adm. Norvell G. Ward, who served as chief of naval forces in the Vietnam War during a period of escalating U.S. involvement, died July 19 in a retirement community in Atlantic Beach, Fla. He was 92 and had congestive heart failure.

Ward graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1935 and became a much-honored submariner during World War II. He received the Navy Cross, the highest decoration for valor after the Medal of Honor, as commanding officer of the submarine Guardfish for sinking eight Japanese ships on one patrol.

After commanding a submarine squadron that tested the Regulus surface-fired missile, he entered the Polaris nuclear missile program in 1958. He commanded Submarine Squadron 14, the first group of Polaris subs deployed overseas, which provided a breakthrough in long-range nuclear strike capability because the subs could fire underwater.

An expert in strategic planning and war gaming, he was promoted to rear admiral in 1963. Two years later, he arrived in Saigon as chief of the Naval Advisory Group under the U.S. Military Assistance Command and soon after became commander of naval forces in Vietnam.

He oversaw the launch of river patrol boats and played a major role in implementing Operation Market Time, which tried to stop the North Vietnamese from smuggling arms along the coast.

Capable, efficient and placid, Ward did not emerge as one of the vibrant personalities of the war. He turned down opportunities for promotion to vice admiral as a gesture to his wife, who had bouts of cancer and from whom he endured long separations while on assignment.

He retired from the Navy in 1973.

Norvell Gardiner Ward was born Dec. 30, 1912, in Indian Head, Md., where his father was a civil service supervisor at the Naval Powder Factory. He received a congressional appointment to the Naval Academy in 1931.

On Sept. 11, 1942, during one of his five Pacific war patrols aboard the submarine Seadragon, he assisted pharmacist’s mate Wheeler Lipes in performing a remarkable emergency appendectomy on a seaman. Using instruments on hand and sitting 120 feet below enemy-held waters in the China Sea, Ward was selected to place tablespoons in the seaman’s side as Lipes cut through layers of muscle.

“I chose him for his coolness and dependability,” Lipes told Chicago Daily News reporter George Weller in his Pulitzer Prize-winning account. “He acted as my third and fourth hands.”

Ward won a series of decorations as executive officer on the submarine Gato before taking command of the Guardfish in May 1943.

From June 14 to July 31 of that year, he engaged in six “well planned and executed” torpedo attacks that sunk eight enemy ships totaling more than 38,000 tons, according to his Navy Cross citation.

His decorations also included the Distinguished Service Medal, three awards of the Silver Star and five awards of the Legion of Merit.

Survivors include his wife of 68 years, Elizabeth Kearney Ward; three children; 13 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.