2008
James Ernest Perry, 85, a retired electrical engineer with the Army Night Vision Laboratory, died Nov. 19 of congestive heart
failure at Anne Arundel Medical Center. He was a Mayo resident.
While in the Navy during World War II, Mr. Perry helped pioneer the development of the Navy's carrier-based airborne
early-warning radar. After the war, he joined the Naval Research Optics Division and was involved in the weapons-testing
program that resulted in the development of the hydrogen bomb. Later in his government career, he moved to the Army Night
Vision Laboratory, where he was co-inventor of the common module concept in thermal imaging, which is still in use worldwide.
He also represented the United States on several research study groups affiliated with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
After his retirement in the early 1980s, he was an electro-optics consultant for 14 years.
Mr. Perry was a fifth-generation Washingtonian and a graduate of Roosevelt High School. He received a bachelor's degree in
electrical engineering from Texas A&M University in the late 1940s and a master's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.
He was a past president of the Chevy Chase Lions Club, a life member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
and a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars
and the Society of Old Crows.
Survivors include his wife of 52 years, Thelma D. Perry of Mayo; three children, James E. Perry Jr. of Easton, Md., Albert B. Perry
of Annapolis and Consuelo Tippins Pisciotta of Bethesda; six grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
-- Joe Holley