Joseph Brittain

Joseph Francis Brittain, 82, of Springfield, died on September 22, 2007, after a brief illness. Son of the late Joseph William and Anna Laura (Williams) Brittain of Springfield and Webster County, he attended local schools, graduating from Central High School in 1942. In July of that year, upon reaching the age of 17, he enlisted in the U. S. Marine Corps. After basic and unit training in San Diego, he served 30 months in the Pacific Ocean area where he participated in combat action in the Solomon Islands and the Mariana Islands. He was particularly proud of having taken part in the recapture of the U.S. possession of Guam, which had fallen to the Japanese shortly after Pearl Harbor. At the war's end, he was discharged with the rank of Sergeant.

In 1946, he enlisted in the U. S. Army Air Forces and was part of the first group to be commissioned into the newly independent United States Air Force in 1947. His career assignments included those of instructor of radar/electronics, combat crew member as an electronic countermeasures observer in Strategic Air Command reconnaissance, technical intelligence liaison and analysis, and missile and space systems research and development. Although holding a Regular Air Force commission with the rank of Major, he elected early retirement in 1963 and pursued a second career as a member of the technical staff of The Aerospace Corporation of El Segundo, California, engaged in missile and space systems engineering for the Department of Defense, from which he retired in 1989.

He was a graduate of the University of Maryland, a member of the National Air and Space Intelligence Center Alumni Association, The California Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, The Society of the War of 1812, The Sons of the Union Veterans, The Association of Old Crows, and a life member of the First Marine Division Association.

He was married to the late Eunice Fay Strother of Gulfport, Mississippi and is survived by two daughters, Carol Brittain, an attorney of San Francisco, CA, and Rebecca Bittner, a physician of McLean, VA, and by two grandchildren, Ryan Christopher Bittner and Elizabeth Fay Thomson Brittain.

Funeral Mass will be at 11 a.m. Friday, Sept. 28, 2007 in St. Agnes Cathedral with Fr. Mike McDevitt celebrant. Interment service will be at 3 p.m. Friday in the Brittain family plot in the Marshfield Cemetery, Marshfield, Missouri under the care of Herman H. Lohmeyer Funeral Home, 500 E. Walnut, Springfield.

Visitation will be from 6 to 7 p.m. Thursday with prayer services starting at 7 p.m. all in the funeral home. The casket will be closed at all times.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to St. Agnes Chapel, 533 S. Jefferson, Springfield, MO 65806. Online condolences can be made at www.hhlohmeyer.com.