Final Salute

BERLIN — Wayne K. Goodermote, a retired U.S. Navy captain who received a hero’s welcome in March 1973 when he returned home from nearly six years of North Vietnamese imprisonment, died Thursday, family members said. He was 79.
Goodermote entered the Navy after graduating from the University of Rochester. He was commissioned following ROTC in college. He became a navigator and radar officer aboard a RA-5C Vigilante.
Flying from the USS Constellation, Goodermote, then a lieutenant, and pilot Cdr. Leo G. Hyatt were shot down on Aug. 13, 1967 over North Vietnam near the Chinese border. They were following up a bombing raid to photograph the results.

“I wasn’t a hero. I was a survivor,” Goodermote said in a recent interview with the Times Union about his experience as a POW and his return home.
Goodermote was a top student and athlete at Berlin High School. Friends and family described him as having a keen sense of humor, very intelligent, a loyal friend and a welcoming host with his wife, Patricia. He was also a skilled woodworker and enjoyed gardening.
“He made furniture. He made a working violin. He was an expert,” his sister, Jan Newport, said. “He had rose bushes and other flowers.”
Goodermote died in the San Diego area where he and his wife had been living after he retired from the Navy and from working in the private sector.
He had planned to serve four years in the Navy, but decided to continue on in the service after the Vietnam War. He switched career paths in the Navy from aviation to civil engineering, fulfilling a dream to study architecture.
Wayne Goodermote, retired U.S. Navy officer and POW, has died

Goodermote worked on the Trident submarine base at Bangor, Wash., near Bremerton, and on Guam. He served in other positions including commanding Amphibious Construction Battalion 1, a “Seabee” unit, before going to San Diego where he was the officer in charge of the Broadway Complex Redevelopment Project. He retired as a captain in August 1991.
Goodermote met his wife at the U.S. Navy Hospital in St. Albans, Queens, where he went immediately after returning from Vietnam.
“We had a lot of friends we picked up along the way,” Goodermore said about the life the couple lived.
Goodermote did not dwell on what happened during his imprisonment as a prisoner of war, instead looking to enjoy the second part of his life after spending most of his 20s imprisoned.
“Sometimes it comes up. I don’t go around talking about it. I prefer people accept me for what I am rather than what I was,” Goodermote said during the recent Times Union interview.
In addition to his wife and sister, Goodermote is survived by his brother, Dean Goodermote of Vermont, and nieces and nephews. Funeral arrangements were not immediately available.