J.H. Sides
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Admiral John Harold Sides (April 22, 1904 – April 3, 1978) was a four-star admiral in the
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...
who served as commander in chief of the
United States Pacific Fleet The United States Pacific Fleet (USPACFLT) is a theater-level component command of the United States Navy, located in the Pacific Ocean. It provides naval forces to the Indo-Pacific Command. Fleet headquarters is at Joint Base Pearl Harborâ ...
from 1960 to 1963 and was known as the father of the Navy's guided-missile program.


Early career

Born in
Roslyn, Washington Roslyn is a city in Kittitas County, Washington, United States. The population was 950 at the 2020 census. Roslyn is located in the Cascade Mountains, about 80 miles east of Seattle. The town was founded in 1886 as a coal mining company town. ...
to George Kelley Sides and Estella May Bell, he attended primary and secondary schools in Roslyn, then studied for one year at the
University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...
before being appointed to the
United States Naval Academy The United States Naval Academy (USNA, Navy, or Annapolis) is a United States Service academies, federal service academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It was established on 10 October 1845 during the tenure of George Bancroft as United States Secre ...
, from which he graduated ninth in a class of 448 in 1925. Commissioned ensign, he served four years aboard the battleship ''Tennessee'' before being dispatched to the
Asiatic Station The Asiatic Squadron was a squadron (naval), squadron of United States Navy warships stationed in East Asia during the latter half of the 19th century. It was created in 1868 when the East India Squadron was disbanded. Vessels of the squadron w ...
with the destroyer ''John D. Edwards'' to participate in the
Yangtze River Patrol The Yangtze Patrol, also known as the Yangtze River Patrol Force, Yangtze River Patrol, YangPat, and ComYangPat, was a prolonged naval operation initiated after the Battle of Muddy Flat, from 1854 to 1949 to protect American interests in th ...
. He returned to the United States in June 1931 to study naval ordnance at the
Naval Postgraduate School Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) is a Naval command with a graduate university mission, operated by the United States Navy and located in Monterey, California. The NPS mission is to provide "defense-focused graduate education, including clas ...
in
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, beginning a long career in that field. He completed the ordnance course at the
University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...
at
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in 1934, and in May began two years as assistant fire control officer aboard the light cruiser ''Cincinnati''. He served as flag lieutenant on the staff of a battleship division commander from 1936 to 1937, then spent two years in the ammunition section of the
Bureau of Ordnance The Bureau of Ordnance (BuOrd) was a United States Navy organization, which was responsible for the procurement, storage, and deployment of all naval weapons, between the years 1862 and 1959. History The Bureau of Ordnance was established as part ...
. In July 1939, he assumed command of the destroyer ''Tracy'', which was assigned to Mine Division 1 and operated out of
Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Reci ...
with the
Battle Force The United States Battle Fleet or Battle Force was part of the organization of the United States Navy from 1922 to 1941. The General Order of 6 December 1922 organized the United States Fleet, with the Battle Fleet as the Pacific presence. Thi ...
. He commanded ''Tracy'' until November 1940, then reported aboard the light cruiser ''Savannah'' as gunnery officer.


World War II

Following the United States entry into
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, he returned to the Bureau of Ordnance in March 1942 to serve as chief of the ammunition and explosives section, where his work in research and development was instrumental in creating fuses and explosives and devising new formulae. At the Bureau of Ordnance, Sides nurtured a number of early rocket projects, often against high-level institutional opposition. One notable success was the
High Velocity Aircraft Rocket The High Velocity Aircraft Rocket, or HVAR, also known by the nickname Holy Moses, was an American unguided rocket developed during World War II to attack targets on the ground from aircraft. It saw extensive use during both World War II and th ...
(HVAR), a 5-inch air-to-ground rocket that was used in Europe against trucks and tanks and was being produced at the rate of 40,000 per day by the end of the war. "He was a real pioneer of the Navy rocket programs," recalled Thomas F. Dixon, HVAR project officer under Sides' supervision and later chief designer of the engines for the
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,
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,
Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...
, Redstone, and
Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 tim ...
rockets. "All the way through it was a fight with the admirals.
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's professor of physics, Dr. Charles Lauritsen, had developed a barrage rocket - ideal for landings to clean up the banks. When we brought this to the Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance, however, his general reaction was, 'Don't put rockets on my battleships, cruisers, or destroyers.'" Sides returned to sea in October 1944 in command of Mine Division 8 for combat duty in the
Pacific theater The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
, where the Navy credited him with "contributing materially to the success of the Okinawa invasion." In April 1945, he became commander of Destroyer Squadron 47, and remained in that command until the end of the war. After the war, he was assigned as assistant chief of staff for operations and training on the staff of the commander of battleships and cruisers in the Atlantic Fleet. In September 1947 he reported for instruction at the
National War College In the United States, the National War College (NWC) is a school within the National Defense University. It is housed in Roosevelt Hall on Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C., the third-oldest Army post still active. History The National ...
in Washington, D.C.


Father of the guided-missile Navy

In June 1948, he began two years as deputy to the assistant chief of naval operations for guided missiles, Rear Admiral Daniel V. Gallery. Over the next decade, he would build a reputation for missile expertise and eventually become known as the father of the Navy's guided-missile program.


Revolt of the Admirals

As deputy assistant chief of naval operations for guided missiles, Sides risked his career by participating in the
Revolt of the Admirals The "Revolt of the Admirals" was a policy and funding dispute within the United States government during the Cold War in 1949, involving a number of retired and active duty United States Navy admirals. These included serving officers Admiral Lo ...
, an episode of civil-military conflict in which high-ranking Navy officials publicly clashed with their Air Force counterparts and civilian superiors over the future of the United States military. Testifying as a guided-missile expert before the
House Armed Services Committee The U.S. House Committee on Armed Services, commonly known as the House Armed Services Committee or HASC, is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. It is responsible for funding and oversight of the Department of ...
on October 11, 1949, Sides warned that the Air Force's
B-36 The Convair B-36 "Peacemaker" is a strategic bomber built by Convair and operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) from 1949 to 1959. The B-36 is the largest mass-produced piston-engined aircraft ever built, although it was exceeded in span ...
strategic bomber would not be able to penetrate Russian defenses to deliver its nuclear payload as claimed, since the United States already possessed supersonic guided missiles that would "seek out and destroy the really fast jet bombers now on the drawing boards" and the Russians had likely inherited a similar capability from the German
Wasserfall The ("Waterfall remote-controlled anti-aircraft rocket") was a German guided supersonic surface-to-air missile project of World War II. Development was not completed before the end of the war and it was not used operationally. The system was ...
missile development program and personnel they had captured at the end of World War II. When Sides became eligible for early promotion to rear admiral a month later, the selection board was perceived to be stacked against captains who had participated in the Revolt because it included none of the top admirals involved in the controversy. Passed over as expected, in 1950 he took command of the heavy cruiser ''Albany'' for a twelve-month tour in the Atlantic Fleet. Sides had hoped to captain the first guided-missile cruiser, which the Navy had expected to put in operation by that year, but its development schedule had slipped due to problems with the
sound barrier The sound barrier or sonic barrier is the large increase in aerodynamic drag and other undesirable effects experienced by an aircraft or other object when it approaches the speed of sound. When aircraft first approached the speed of sound, th ...
. The first guided-missile cruiser would not become operational until 1955.


Regulus cruise missile

In 1951, Sides became head of the technical section in the office of the director of guided missiles in the Department of Defense, K.T. Keller, the former president and chairman of the board of the
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who had been appointed "missile czar" in October 1950 with a mandate to unify the independent service missile programs. Keller ordered the services to shift from experimentation to production on five missile projects: the Army's
Nike Nike often refers to: * Nike, Inc., a major American producer of athletic shoes, apparel, and sports equipment * Nike (mythology), a Greek goddess who personifies victory Nike may also refer to: People * Nike (name), a surname and feminine giv ...
; the Air Force's
Matador A bullfighter or matador () is a performer in the activity of bullfighting. ''Torero'' () or ''toureiro'' (), both from Latin ''taurarius'', are the Spanish and Portuguese words for bullfighter, and describe all the performers in the activ ...
; and the Navy's
Terrier Terrier () is a Dog type, type of dog originally bred to hunt vermin. A terrier is a dog of any one of many Dog breed, breeds or landraces of the terrier Dog type, type, which are typically small, wiry, Gameness, game, and fearless. There are fi ...
, Sparrow, and
Regulus Regulus is the brightest object in the constellation Leo (constellation), Leo and one of the List of brightest stars, brightest stars in the night sky. It has the Bayer designation designated α Leonis, which is Latinisation of names, ...
. As Keller's Navy deputy, Sides was responsible for producing all three Navy missiles, and was credited with being, "as much as any man, the father of the Regulus cruise missile." "He was the real 'thinking' admiral in the guided missile field, and an outstanding man," recalled Regulus project manager Robert F. Freitag.


Fleet ballistic missile

Sides was promoted to rear admiral in 1952 as director of the guided-missile division in the office of the chief of naval operations. In that role, he directed the Navy's entire guided-missile program for almost four years, and played an influential and initially adversarial role in the development of the Polaris fleet ballistic missile (FBM). As top missile advisor to the chief of naval operations, Admiral Robert B. Carney, Sides convinced Carney to veto several early FBM proposals, including a 1952 bid by Freitag and other Navy officers for a weaponized version of the Viking rocket, whose launch from the rolling deck of a ship had already been demonstrated. Since the FBM would have to be funded internally by siphoning funds from existing Navy programs, Carney and Sides both judged that the research costs associated with the FBM were too open-ended to justify sacrificing present combat capability for an unproven future capability. In 1954, Freitag and his colleagues at the
Bureau of Aeronautics The Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) was the U.S. Navy's material-support organization for naval aviation from 1921 to 1959. The bureau had "cognizance" (''i.e.'', responsibility) for the design, procurement, and support of naval aircraft and rela ...
(BuAer) again tried to engage the Navy in FBM development by funneling their research to a secret study committee chaired by
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...
president James R. Killian. The Killian Committee had a charter to unify the ballistic missile programs scattered among the services, and enthusiastically recommended that the Navy develop a fleet-based
intermediate-range ballistic missile An intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range between (), categorized between a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) and an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Classifying ball ...
(IRBM). This external endorsement by a distinguished independent evaluator persuaded the chief of BuAir, Rear Admiral James S. Russell, to fully commit the bureau to FBM development. However, there was no guarantee that any amount of manpower or money could create the components required for a viable FBM system, which still lacked accurate systems for guidance, fire control, and navigation; adequate metals and materials for fabrication; a compact nuclear warhead with sufficient yield; and a
solid rocket propellant Rocket propellant is used as reaction mass ejected from a rocket engine to produce thrust. The energy required can either come from the propellants themselves, as with a chemical rocket, or from an external source, as with ion engines. Overvi ...
to replace
liquid fuel Liquid fuels are combustible or energy-generating molecules that can be harnessed to create mechanical energy, usually producing kinetic energy; they also must take the shape of their container. It is the fumes of liquid fuels that are flammable ...
s that were too dangerous to be used at sea. "There wasn't even a concept as to a launching system," recalled Admiral Arleigh A. Burke, Carney's successor as chief of naval operations. On Sides' advice, Carney again concluded that a full-fledged FBM program remained premature, and in July directed BuAer to discontinue all efforts to expand FBM development. However, Russell exercised his statutory prerogative as
bureau chief A news bureau is an office for gathering or distributing news. Similar terms are used for specialized bureaus, often to indicate a geographic location or scope of coverage: a 'Tokyo bureau' refers to a given news operation's office in Tokyo; 'fo ...
to appeal directly to James H. Smith, assistant secretary of the Navy for air, who kept the project alive until Carney was succeeded by Burke on August 17, 1955. Within 24 hours of being sworn in, Burke summoned Sides, Freitag, and other Navy missile experts to his office for a briefing on the FBM research studies. By the end of the meeting, Burke had reversed Carney's veto and committed the Navy to an all-out FBM development program, directing Sides and Freitag to work out the operational details. Sides handled the Navy's side of negotiations over how exactly to implement the Killian Committee's recommendations, which called for the Navy to develop a ship-launched FBM similar to the Army's
Jupiter IRBM The PGM-19 Jupiter was the first nuclear armed, medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) of the United States Air Force (USAF). It was a liquid-propellant rocket using RP-1 fuel and LOX oxidizer, with a single Rocketdyne LR79-NA (model S-3D) rock ...
. On September 13, 1955, President
Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...
accepted the Killian Committee recommendations and directed the Navy to design a sea-based support system for Jupiter. Sides and the Navy protested that liquid-fuel rockets like Jupiter were too dangerous for shipboard use and pushed instead for submarine-launched solid-fuel rockets for tactical use against enemy submarine bases. However, on November 17, 1955,
Secretary of Defense A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and military forces, found in states where the government is divided ...
Charles E. Wilson ordered the Navy to join the Army on Jupiter development, and specified that all such missile development would not be externally funded but would have to be carved out of the existing Navy budget. In response, Burke created the Special Projects Office, a new organization with a mandate to develop a submarine-launched solid-fuel fleet ballistic missile. The Special Projects Office reported directly to Burke and the
secretary of the Navy The Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) is a statutory officer () and the head (chief executive officer) of the Department of the Navy, a military department within the United States Department of Defense. On March 25, 2025, John Phelan was confirm ...
, an unprecedented bypass of the Navy bureaus that signalled the Navy's commitment to the FBM concept. To direct the Special Projects Office, at Sides' persistent suggestion, Burke selected Sides' former deputy, Rear Admiral William F. Raborn, Jr., whose phenomenal success in that role would earn him renown as the father of Polaris.


Guided-missile cruiser

Sides returned to sea in January 1956 as the first seagoing flag officer to command a guided-missile cruiser group, Cruiser Division 6, which included the guided-missile cruisers ''Boston'' and ''Canberra''. At the long-delayed commissioning of the Navy's first guided-missile cruiser, ''Boston'', in November 1955, Sides declared that the new ship marked a fundamental change in sea warfare because it was now possible to defend the fleet against bombers without losing several fighter planes in the process. "It is my personal opinion that within five years, the Navy will have dozens of guided missile ships. They should include not only vessels carrying antiaircraft missiles but also larger ships with surface to surface missile capability." In March 1956, the Navy displayed its first combat-ready antiaircraft missile, Terrier, aboard ''Boston''. Sides said at the time that he foresaw within five years "a family of surface-to-air guided missile ships...dozens of ships of the cruiser, frigate, destroyer and battleship classes." Sides commanded the cruiser division for only four months before being recalled to Washington in April 1956 to become deputy to the special assistant to the Secretary of Defense for guided missiles, Eger V. Murphree.


Weapons Systems Evaluation Group

Sides was promoted to vice admiral in 1957 to serve as director of the Pentagon's Weapons Systems Evaluation Group (WSEG) from 1957 to 1960. As the chief weapons expert for the
Joint Chiefs of Staff The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is the body of the most senior uniformed leaders within the United States Department of Defense, which advises the president of the United States, the secretary of defense, the Homeland Security Council and ...
, he assured the public that despite apparent setbacks in the space race with the Soviet Union, the American missile program was developing well. On August 21, the Soviet Union successfully tested the first ICBM, a feat reported by
TASS The Russian News Agency TASS, or simply TASS, is a Russian state-owned news agency founded in 1904. It is the largest Russian news agency and one of the largest news agencies worldwide. TASS is registered as a Federal State Unitary Enterpri ...
on August 27. In October, following the unexpected Russian launch of the first satellite,
Sputnik 1 Sputnik 1 (, , ''Satellite 1''), sometimes referred to as simply Sputnik, was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program ...
, Sides spoke before the
American Rocket Society The American Rocket Society (ARS) began its existence on 4 April 1930, under the name of the American Interplanetary Society. It was founded by science fiction writers G. Edward Pendray, David Lasser, Laurence Manning, Nathan Schachner, and ot ...
and Institute of Aeronautical Sciences and disputed the Russian report of a successful ICBM test, claiming the reported August flight might actually have been an "errant sputnik" that failed to make its orbit. He was "certain that the enormous effort which went into the development and launching of Sputnik was at the expense" of the Soviet ICBM program, and asserted that "winning the race for development of long-range weapons systems is more important than getting up the first satellite." His speech was regarded as a vigorous defense of the Eisenhower administration's decision to separate the satellite program from ballistic missile development. After the dramatic failure of the first United States attempt to launch a satellite on December 6, 1957, Sides spoke at a conference of the
American Management Association The American Management Association (AMA) is an American non-profit educational membership organization for the promotion of management, based in New York City. Besides its headquarters there, it has local head offices throughout the world. It o ...
on January 15, 1958, where he reiterated that the nation's development of long-range missiles was "progressing very well" and complained that a false impression had been created by missiles that failed in early tests. "It just so happened that about the time of the sputnik launchings, our intermediate and intercontinental ballistics missile flight-test programs were getting into high gear; and not being blessed with a Siberian proving ground, where we might do our testing in private, every malfunctioning test vehicle was given a play in all the media of public information. The impression was unwittingly created that we were really on our uppers, when, as a matter of fact, each one of these so-called unsuccessful missiles yielded a great deal of the very information it was fired to obtain. In ten years of missile experience I cannot recall a missile system in which similar casualties were not encountered in the early test flights. But in each case we have determined the causes, corrected the deficiencies and gone on to develop a successful weapon system."


Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet

On June 1, 1960, President
Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...
nominated Sides for promotion to admiral as commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet (CINCPACFLT). Because of Sides' background, his appointment was interpreted as heralding a new emphasis on missile warfare. Sides relieved Admiral Herbert G. Hopwood on August 30. His command was responsible for guarding the Far East and the United States West Coast, and included the
First Fleet The First Fleet were eleven British ships which transported a group of settlers to mainland Australia, marking the beginning of the History of Australia (1788–1850), European colonisation of Australia. It consisted of two Royal Navy vessel ...
, the
Seventh Fleet The Seventh Fleet is a numbered fleet of the United States Navy. It is headquartered at U.S. Fleet Activities Yokosuka, in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It is part of the United States Pacific Fleet. At present, it is the largest of th ...
, 400 ships, 3,000 aircraft, and half a million men. Sides was CINCPACFLT during the early stages of American involvement in the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...
. In November 1961, en route to
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to repay a visit to Pearl Harbor by the commander in chief of
Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...
's Navy, Sides stopped overnight in
Saigon Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) ('','' TP.HCM; ), commonly known as Saigon (; ), is the most populous city in Vietnam with a population of around 14 million in 2025. The city's geography is defined by rivers and canals, of which the largest is Saigo ...
with his wife. Asked about rumors of Seventh Fleet units operating in Vietnamese waters, Sides replied, "The center of gravity of the Seventh Fleet is always near a troubled area," but declared there was "no intention" of using the Seventh Fleet "in the immediate future" in any role having to do with the Vietnamese crisis. "But I am not saying it could not happen." As one of the few active four-star admirals, Sides was occasionally considered for other four-star jobs. In 1961, ''
Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...
'' handicapped his odds of succeeding Burke as chief of naval operations at 15-1. He was a candidate to replace Admiral Robert L. Dennison as the NATO
Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic The Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (SACLANT) was one of two supreme commanders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the other being the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR). The SACLANT led Allied Command Atlantic was based ...
in 1963, but was passed over in favor of Admiral
Harold Page Smith Admiral Harold Page Smith (February 17, 1904 – January 4, 1993) was a United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is th ...
. He was relieved by Admiral U.S. Grant Sharp, Jr. on September 30, 1963, and retired from the Navy on October 1.Pacific Fleet Online - U.S. Pacific Fleet Commanders


Personal life

In retirement, he became a consultant to the
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in California. President
Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, under whom he had served a ...
appointed him to the
President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board The President's Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB) is an advisory body to the Executive Office of the President of the United States. According to its self-description, it "provides advice to the President concerning the quality and adequacy o ...
on August 10, 1965. He married the former Virginia Eloise Roach of
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on June 12, 1929, and they had one daughter. His decorations include the
Navy Distinguished Service Medal The Navy Distinguished Service Medal is a military decoration of the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps which was first created in 1919 and is presented to Sailors and Marines to recognize distinguished and exceptionally meritorio ...
,
Yangtze Service Medal The Yangtze Service Medal is a decoration of the United States military which was created in 1930 for presentation to members of the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps (and to a lesser extent, members of the United States Army). Th ...
; the
Legion of Merit The Legion of Merit (LOM) is a Awards and decorations of the United States military, military award of the United States Armed Forces that is given for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievemen ...
with gold star and Combat V, awarded for his service as chief of the ammunition and explosives section of the Bureau of Ordnance during World War II; two Navy Unit commendations; the
American Defense Service Medal The American Defense Service Medal was a United States service medals of the World Wars, military award of the United States Armed Forces, established by , by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, on June 28, 1941. The medal was intended to recogniz ...
; the
American Campaign Medal The American Campaign Medal was a military award of the United States Armed Forces which was first created on November 6, 1942, by issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The medal was intended to recognize those military members who had per ...
; the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal; the
World War II Victory Medal The World War II Victory Medal was a service medal of the United States military which was established by an Act of Congress on 6 July 1945 (Public Law 135, 79th Congress) and promulgated by Section V, War Department Bulletin 12, 1945. Histo ...
; and the
National Defense Service Medal The National Defense Service Medal (NDSM) is a service award of the United States Armed Forces established by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953. It was awarded to every member of the U.S. Armed Forces who served during any one of four s ...
. He received the rank of ''comendador'' in the Order of Naval Merit from
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. He was a member of the chemical society
Phi Lambda Upsilon Phi Lambda Upsilon National Honorary Chemical Society () was founded in 1899 at the Noyes Laboratory of the University of Illinois. Phi Lambda Upsilon was the first honor society dedicated to scholarship in a single discipline, chemistry. Objec ...
, the research society
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, and the graduate engineering society Iota Alpha. He was a Fellow of the
American Rocket Society The American Rocket Society (ARS) began its existence on 4 April 1930, under the name of the American Interplanetary Society. It was founded by science fiction writers G. Edward Pendray, David Lasser, Laurence Manning, Nathan Schachner, and ot ...
. He received a master of science degree from the
University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...
at Ann Arbor in 1934. He is the namesake of the guided-missile frigate ''Sides'', whose coat of arms contains a scaled horse's head that represents a knight on a chessboard, evoking Sides' personal reputation as a man of knightly character and integrity and as a naval officer experienced in the strategies of sea warfare.GlobalSecurity.org - FFG 14 Sides
/ref> The
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confers the annual Admiral John H. Sides Award on select members of its Strike, Land Attack and Air Defense Division "in recognition of meritorious service and noteworthy contribution to effective government-industry advancement in the fields of strike, land attack, and air defense warfare."NDIA - Strike, Land Attack and Air Defense (SLAAD) Division
He died of a heart seizure on the Coronado golf course near
San Diego, California San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...
at the age of 73, and was buried in
Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery is a federal United States National Cemetery System, military cemetery in San Diego, California. It is located on the grounds of the former Army coastal artillery station Naval Base Point Loma, Fort Rosecrans a ...
.


Decorations


References


External links


State Library of Victoria: Photo of Admiral John Sides (American Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Essendon Airport, Victoria)

State Library of Victoria: Photo of Admiral John Sides (American Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sides, John H. United States Navy admirals United States Navy personnel of World War II United States Naval Academy alumni People from Roslyn, Washington 1904 births 1978 deaths Burials at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery Recipients of the Navy Distinguished Service Medal Recipients of the Legion of Merit Recipients of the Order of Naval Merit (Brazil) University of Michigan alumni