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Home Town Bayse, VA
Last Address Bayse, VA
Date of Passing Dec 06, 2004
Location of Interment West Point Cemetery - West Point, New York
LTG John Norton died of cancer in his home in Basye, Va., on 6 Dec 2004, at age 86. General Norton was born at Fort Monroe, Virginia, and grew up in Norfolk.
General Norton, who was known as Jack, spent nearly 40 years in the Army. He joined in the mid-1930s and, after two years as an enlisted man, won an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy. At West Point, the faculty named him first captain of the Class of 1941, an honor bestowed on one cadet a year for academic achievement and leadership. The future general was the cadet commander of the corps at the academy.
During World War II, General Norton was a paratrooper with the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the famed 82nd Airborne Division, jumping behind German lines into the French village of St. Mere-Eglise on D-Day. A museum honoring the airborne efforts on D-Day now stands in St. Mere-Eglise.
General Norton also participated in the Battle of the Bulge and saw combat in Sicily, Italy, Belgium and Germany. In January 1946, he helped plan a victory parade in New York, leading the troops of the 82nd Airborne.
In the late 1940s, General Norton assisted Army General James M. Gavin in planning policies to coordinate airborne activities with the newly formed Air Force. From 1950 to 1953, he was executive officer to Army Secretary Frank Pace Jr. He spent the next several years in Yugoslavia, administering a federal aid program.
After receiving certification as an airplane and helicopter pilot in 1956, General Norton had a major role in shaping aviation within the Army. In 1962, he was a member of the Howze Board, directed by Lieutenant General Hamilton Howze, that devised the Army's modern doctrine of using airpower in wartime. Among other things, it outlined the future use of helicopters in combat.
General Norton became commanding general of the Army's 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam in 1966, putting into practice the air cavalry recommendations he had helped frame four years before.
From 1970 to 1973, he was commanding general of the Combat Development Command at Fort Belvoir, where he oversaw the early steps of building the Black Hawk helicopter and the M1 Abrams main battle tank. In his final military post, from 1973 to 1975, Gen. Norton was deputy commander in chief of NATO's Allied Joint Force Command in Naples.
After his retirement from the Army, he worked with other military leaders in advising Pentagon officials and members of Congress. He also closely followed developments at West Point. He assisted in preparing three documentaries about airborne operations during World War II for the History Channel.
He is a member of the Army Aviation Hall of Fame and the Army Field Experimentation Hall of Fame. On 22 Sept 2004, he received the Doughboy Award for his contributions to combat Infantry.
His wife of 46 years, Cheyney McNabb Norton, died in 1992.
His second wife, Leslie C. Smith, whom he married in 1992, died in 2002.
Survivors include three children, retired Army Lieutenant Colonel John Norton Jr. of Berryville, Virginia, Alexandra Norton of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and Cheyney Edwards of Warrenton; a sister; nine grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Other Comments:
Army Aviation Hall of Fame 1977 Induction
Lieutenant General John Norton became associated with Army Aviation in 1955 when he was assigned to the Office of the Chief for Research and Development in the Department of the Army. He served as chief of the Airborne, Aviation, and Electronics Division, and of the Airmobility Division. During that three-year tour, he attended the Army Aviation School, earning a dual rating as a fixed and rotary wing aviator.
He was assigned as the Army Aviation Officer, Headquarters, USCONARC, Fort Monroe, in September 1960. In that capacity, he was twice selected to serve on high-level boards. The first was the Hoelscher Committee which was formed to study and make proposals to the chief of staff regarding the reorganization of the Army.
The second board General Norton served on was the Tactical Mobility Requirements, or air assault doctrine while using simple, rugged aircraft. In September 1962, he returned to USCONARC headquarters and worked until May 1963 as chief of the Aviation Division, DCSUTR.
His assignments in Vietnam included commanding the 1st Air Cavalry Division. He left that position in June 1967 to become commanding general of the Army Aviation Materiel Command, St. Louis, MO. Lieutenant General Norton retired from active duty at Fort Monroe, VA, in July 1975.
The U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC) is the primary provider of materiel to the United States Army. The Command's mission includes the research & development of weapons systems as well as maintenance and parts distribution. It was established on 8 May 1962 and was activated on 1 August of that year as a major field command of the U.S. Army. Lieutenant General Frank S. Besson, Jr., who directed the implementation of the Department of Army study that recommended creation of a "materiel development and logistics command", served as its first commander.
AMC operates research and development engineering centers; Army Research Laboratories; depots; arsenals; ammunition plants; and other facilities, and maintains the Army's prepositioned stocks, both on land and afloat. The command is also the Department of Defense Executive Agent for the chemical weapons stockpile and for conventional ammunition.
AMC is responsible within the United States Department of Defense for the business of selling Army equipment and services to allies of the United States and negotiates and implements agreements for co-production of U.S. weapons systems by foreign nations.
AMC is currently headquartered at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, and is located in approximately 149 locations worldwide, including more than 49 American States and 50 countries. AMC maintains employment of upwards of 70,000 military and civilian employees.
The 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission decision relocated AMC to Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. Personnel began relocating to Redstone in 2006 and the command was completely relocated by summer 2011, effecting one in every six AMC employees across the command, or approximately 11,000 people in 25 states. AMC was previously headquartered on Ft. Belvoir, VA, for approximately fifty years.
