William Edward McTigue

William Edward McTigue of Ft. Washington, MD, 90, passed away on Wednesday, November 29, 2017. Born to the late Emma (Riel) and Philip McTigue in Palmer, MA, on February 12, 1927. Bill’s father, from an immigrant Irish family, taught him the value of strength, determination, high expectations, and instilled in him the drive to make life better for his family. His mother was of French Canadian extraction. She taught him the virtues of loyalty, community, and family. Bill was an accomplished athlete and scholar, winning an award at his high school for “Best All Around Boy” just days before joining the US Army during World War Two. In the Army, Bill was sent to Europe where he was stationed near Nuremberg working in a displaced persons camp, helping people who had been liberated from concentration camps and slave labor mines. He had just turned 18. Later, he was part of a graves registry unit that traveled around Europe interviewing local people about plane crashes or the locations of suspected mass graves. They recovered many bodies and ensured the deceased were treated with respect. After the War, Bill used the GI Bill to attend the University of Massachusetts, which was then known as the Massachusetts Agricultural College. On his first day at the university, his parents dropped him off in Amherst and his father told him his job was to become an educated man. Bill majored in forestry, combining his love of nature and science. He conducted research in the Harvard Forest and spent summers fighting forest fires in the Pacific Northwest. After graduating, Bill was hired as a cartographer by the US Navy's Hydrographic Office. His team mapped areas around the world, including Turkey, the Black Sea, Thailand, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. He surveyed northern Greenland, the Canadian Arctic, and parts of Hudson Bay for the installation of DEW Line stations that monitored Soviet missile activity over the North Pole. Bill also took part in the mapping of part of Antarctica, where he has a mountain named after him. He always dismissed this saying, “It was just a small mountain...more like a big hill”, because it was largely covered in ice. While at Navy Hydro, Bill enrolled in a course on the interpretation of aerial photographs. He finished at the top of the class, above fellow students who were working for this sort of “new-ish” Federal agency involved with intelligence. Shortly after, Bill was recruited by the CIA to work on photo interpretation, first from plane-based photos then from satellites. One Sunday, he was raking leaves and getting ready to watch football when he received a call. A military officer ordered him to work immediately. Something had been seen on a photo from Cuba. Bill spent the next several days working on images of a Soviet missile site; the Cuban missile crisis had begun. When President Kennedy addressed the nation there was a large photo over his shoulder showing the site. Bill had worked on that image and helped to develop the large photo by turning shower floors in the Suitland Federal buildings into large photo developing pans. Bill met the love of his life, Bernice (Bakajza), while dancing at a Paul Jones dance at the American Legion Post 248. It was love at first sight. They married in 1961 and two daughters, Terry and Mickey, soon followed. Bill and Bea raised their girls with abundant love and instilled in them a sense of personal and social responsibility. As good of a father as Bill was, he was an even better grandfather. His beloved granddaughters Katie and Carrie knew from the minute he held them that they were special and adored and that their “PopPop” would move heaven and earth for them. Bill loved serving his country and saw it as a way to give back to the nation that had given his family the chance to succeed. He was a member for over 60 years of the American Legion Post 248 and the VFW Morningside Post 9619. As much as he loved his country and his work, though, he loved his family even more. He is survived by his two loving daughters, Teresa McTigue (Lawrence Blue) of Silver Spring, MD, and Michelle McTigue (Bernard Janoss) of Lake Orion, MI; and two adoring granddaughters, Katherine and Caroline Janoss. In addition to his parents, William was predeceased by his wife Bernice in 2014. To send flowers or a memorial gift to the family of William Edward McTigue please visit our Sympathy Store.