Person Page 1,397

James King Tyson, Sr.^1,2,3

Facts and Notes

• Birth: 17 August 1920; Alexandria, Douglas County, Minnesota, USABGO^2,1
• Death: 9 March 2009; Fairfax County, Virginia, USABGO^1,2

• Note: Obituaries
  
  Sunday, September 27, 2009
  
  James K. Tyson Sr. Naval Scientist
  
  James K. Tyson Sr., 89, a retired senior scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses, died of complications from pneumonia Sept. 4 at his home in Fairfax County.
  
  Dr. Tyson worked much of his life for independent research groups that performed analyses for the government and military. He had been director of the Operations Evaluation Group (OEG), an organization that became part of the center. During World War II, Dr. Tyson and the OEG received a written commendation for their work on search and screening patterns used for anti-submarine warfare.
  
  James King Tyson was born in Alexandria, Minn., and grew up in northern Illinois. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received a doctorate in nuclear physics there in 1943.
  
  A year earlier, he was the 10th scientist recruited into the Anti-Submarine Warfare Operations Research Group, a classified military organization in Washington. After World War II ended, the anti-submarine group became OEG and in 1962 it became part of the Center for Naval Analyses.
  
  In the 1980s, Dr. Tyson worked on a series of Navy projects with the code names Night Raider and Slow Walker.
  
  He lived in Yokohama, Japan, in the mid-1950s and then in Newport, R.I., while teaching at the Naval War College. In 1961, he spent a year at Villefrance-sur-Mer, France, as scientific operations consultant to the Navy's 6th Fleet Command.
  
  After retiring in 1985, Dr. Tyson taught at the Naval Academy. He also volunteered with the Boy Scouts in Fairfax County and tutored inmates at the county jail.
  
  Passionate about sailing, Dr. Tyson was commodore of the Potomac River Sailing Association in 1977 and held other offices in the group.
  
  Survivors include his wife of 58 years, Ann Elizabeth Lavery Tyson of Fairfax County; seven children, Mary Tyson St. John of Lancaster, Pa., James Tyson Jr. of Fairfax County, Ann Tyson Olsen of Warren, Minn., Margaret Tyson of Duxbury, Mass., Robert Tyson of Lake Norman, N.C., Katherine Tyson Talbot of Leesburg and Laura Tyson of Hope, N.J.; and 13 grandchildren.
  
  -- Patricia Sullivan

Citations

1. [S36] Newspaper article, The Washington Post (Washington, D.C.), 27 September 2009, Obituaries: "James K. Tyson Sr. Naval Scientist"
2. [S404] Ancestry.com, U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014, http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=ssdi&h=85609168&indiv=try, Issue State: Illinois; Issue Date: 1951, Record for James K. Tyson
3. [S517] Ancestry.com, Virginia, Marriage Records, 1936-2014, https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=9279&h=13112013&indiv=try, Virginia Department of Health; Richmond, Virginia; Virginia, Marriages, 1936-2014; Roll: 101176743, Record for James King Tyson