Obituary

Oliver S. Burnette, 84, naval aviator

Oliver “Ollie” Stokes Burnette, a retired Navy officer and longtime Alexandria resident, died March 4 of heart failure in Bethesda. He was 84.

He was raised in Coulterville, Ill., where he achieved the rank of Eagle Scout. He graduated from Millikin University in Decatur, Ill., in 1941.

While in college, Mr. Burnette was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, and played the bass fiddle and tuba in big bands that toured the Midwest. Upon graduation, he joined the Navy and entered the Aviation Cadet Program, earning his wings as a naval aviator in 1942.

He had a long and illustrious career as a naval aviator, serving on five aircraft carriers and making more than 200 carrier landings. He served aboard the USS Randolph in the China Sea during World War II and flew more than 30 missions in “Crommelin’s Thunderbirds” as a dive bomber pilot in support of operations on Iwo Jima, Okinawa and against the Japanese mainland.

During his tenure on the USS Randolph, he was forced to ditch his aircraft in heavy sea swells when it lost all hydraulics and he could not maintain altitude to make a carrier landing. He and his gunner were rescued by a team from a nearby destroyer. The USS Randolph later was hit by kamikaze attacks that caused heavy damage.

After the war, Mr. Burnette served aboard the USS Boxer during the occupation of Japan. In the 1960s, he commanded an antisubmarine squadron on the USS Princeton.

He was a member of the Caterpillar Club, whose members have jumped from a disabled aircraft with parachutes. While serving as an operational flight instructor in Florida in 1943, he was forced to eject over the Everglades when the tail of his plane was sheared off by a student pilot.

In later years, Mr. Burnette served on the U.S. Naval Mission to Brazil, as defense attache to Turkey and, in his last assignment, as chief of attache activities for the Defense Intelligence Agency.

He retired in 1973 and lived in Alexandria until 1998, when he moved to the Jefferson nursing home in Arlington and served as president of its board of directors.

His military decorations included the Legion of Merit and multiple awards of the Air Medal. He was a longtime member of the Army-Navy Country Club, Navy League, Tailhook Association, Sons of the American Revolution and National Eagle Scout Association.

He is survived by three daughters, Julie Handley of Arlington, Marianne Leard of Alexandria and Marcia Thomason of Fairfax; a sister, Loris Dean Clifford of Manchester, Miss.; and eight grandchildren. His wife of 57 years, Mary Wynn Burnette, died in 2001.