Obituaries

John Oliver Bachert IINavy Captain

John Oliver Bachert II, 82, a retired Navy captain who held executive positions with high-tech companies, died May 13 of congestive heart failure at Fairfax Nursing Center. He lived in Annandale.

Capt. Bachert joined the Navy in 1942 and served as an officer in the Pacific theater during World War II. He later served in Japan and on the staff of the commander of the Pacific fleet in Hawaii.

His first assignment in Washington came in 1955, with the Office of Naval Research. After serving as executive officer on a destroyer, Capt. Bachert assumed command of the USS Requisite, a survey ship in the Persian Gulf, in 1959.

He was on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon from 1960 to 1962 and later studied at the Naval War College. He commanded the destroyer USS Cunningham in 1964-65. After a second stint in Hawaii in the office of the Pacific fleet commander, Capt. Bachert commanded the USS Mathews, an attack cargo ship, in Vietnam in 1968.

Capt. Bachert completed his Navy career on the staff of the Joint Chiefs, from 1969 until his retirement in 1973. His decorations included the Meritorious Service Medal and the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal.

After his military career, Capt. Bachert was assistant to the vice president of Computer Sciences Corp. for about 15 years. He later worked for Planning Research Corp. in McLean. He also taught computer science courses at American and George Washington universities.

Capt. Bachert was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa, and grew up in Sioux City, Iowa. He graduated from Northwestern University and received a master's in business administration from George Washington University in 1971. He received a PhD in computer science from GWU in 1973.

He was a member of St. Ambrose Catholic Church in Annandale and Army Navy Country Club.

Survivors include his wife of 58 years, Dorothea Bachert of Annandale; a son, John Oliver Bachert III of Richmond; and two grandsons.

-- Matt Schudel

James Francis RossTheology Professor

James Francis Ross, 79, a former professor at the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, died May 28 of complications from heart surgery at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. He lived at Asbury Methodist Village in Gaithersburg.

Dr. Ross taught at the seminary, which is affiliated with the Episcopal Church, from 1968 to 1996, when he retired. His academic specialty was the literature and theology of the Hebrew Bible. He was also an archaeologist who worked on excavations in Israel and Palestine from the 1950s to the 1980s.

Dr. Ross was born in Omaha and was a summa cum laude graduate of Doane College in Crete, Neb. He was ordained as a minister of the United Church of Christ in 1952 and received a doctorate in theology in 1955 from Union Theological Seminary in New York.

He was a professor of religion, theology and ancient languages at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., and Drew University in Madison, N.J., before coming to the seminary. He was the author of many articles on theology, biblical literature and archaeology.

Dr. Ross lived in Alexandria until 1996, when he moved to Asbury Methodist Village. He was a member of First Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington for many years and later attended Bethesda United Church of Christ.

He was a member of the Society for Biblical Literature, American Academy of Religion and American Schools of Oriental Research.

His other interests included photography, for which he won several awards, computers and digital imagery. He enjoyed traveling and studied the history and architecture of many parts of Europe and the Mediterranean. He had owned a home in Nova Scotia since 1969.

Dr. Ross visited bookstores almost every day and became interested in crossword puzzles, English history and astronomy late in life.

His first wife, Miriam Dewey Ross, whom he married in 1949, died in 1996.

Survivors include his wife of nine years, Joyce Gillard of Gaithersburg; three children from his first marriage, Deborah Ross of Olympia, Wash., Steven Ross of Baton Rouge and Rebekah Ross of Olympia, Wash., and Brinnon, Wash.; and five grandchildren.

-- Matt Schudel