Obituary of Wilbur Hummon Goss

From the Washington Post, May 13, 2006

Wilbur Hummon Goss, 94, former deputy director of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, died May 8 at his home in Santa Barbara, Calif. He had Parkinson’s disease.

Dr. Goss was part of a select group of scientists working under highly classified conditions in 1942 who developed the “proximity fuze,” which used radio waves to detect enemy aircraft. The fuze would then detonate an antiaircraft shell close to the target.

The fuze is credited with stopping the buzz bomb attack on London during World War II, playing a crucial part in the Battle of the Bulge and enabling naval ships to ward off Japanese aircraft in the Western Pacific.

Dr. Goss also helped develop, in 1944, the first successful supersonic ramjet combustion system used in guided missiles, including the Talos missile, the Navy’s primary antiaircraft missile for 22 years.

For these efforts, Dr. Goss was awarded the Franklin Institute’s Potts Medal in 1962, the Navy’s Distinguished Public Service Award and the Presidential Certificate of Merit.

He retired from the Applied Physics Lab in 1965 and moved to Santa Barbara, where he was a consultant for the General Motors Research Laboratory.

A native of Tacoma, Wash., he graduated from the University of Puget Sound in 1932 and received a doctorate in physics from the University of Washington in 1939. He began teaching but was soon recruited for the secret project at the APL in Silver Spring.

Dr. Goss, who applied his analytical skills to the stock market, established two charitable trusts, one for the California Institute of Technology and one for the University of Puget Sound. He enjoyed playing bridge and fly fishing, particularly on the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River in Idaho.

His wife of 68 years, Mildred Goss, died in January.

Survivors include three children, Barry Goss and Barbara Goss Levi, both of Santa Barbara, and Carolyn Willis of Rockville; a sister; six grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren