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The Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, July 20, 2017
PETERBOROUGH February 28, 1942 ? July 10, 2017
Alex Bass, 75, died of complications from pneumonia at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston on Monday July 10, 2017.
A real New Hampshire Yankee has passed away. Alex was a decorated war hero, a proud head of a large family dating back to the original settlement of Peterborough, a dedicated husband and father, a successful businessman, and a consummate outdoorsman. He was tough, strong, loyal, fearless, patriotic, hard-working, practical, skeptical, thrifty, and impervious to bad weather.
Eldest son of former New Hampshire Congressman Perkins Bass and Katharine Jackson Bass, Alex was born on February 28, 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts. Shortly after Alex's birth his father left for China to serve as an intelligence officer with Gen. Clare Chennault of the Flying Tigers. Alex's grandfather, Robert P. Bass, had been governor of New Hampshire, and Alex's brother Charlie would go on to be elected to the same seat in Congress that Perkins Bass had held.
Alex attended Dublin School in Dublin, NH and St. Albans School in Washington, DC where his Yankee stubbornness got him in continual trouble with school officials. His high jinks and unwillingness to suffer fools (including teachers) gladly caused him to be frequently confined to campus ? put "on bounds" as St. Albans called it. One year Alex was on bounds the whole winter and built himself a small sailboat in the school's basement.
Alex graduated in 1963 from Dartmouth College. He enlisted in the Navy and went to Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island. After serving as a Junior Lieutenant on a destroyer, he was given the command of a Swift Boat (PCF 68) in Vietnam's Mekong Delta. On the first day of 1967, Alex and his crew intercepted an 80-foot North Vietnamese armored ship that was attempting to deliver arms and ammunition to the Viet Cong. The fighting lasted all night. Alex finally sunk the North Vietnamese ship and received a Bronze Star with Valor.
After leaving the Navy in 1968, Alex attended Columbia University Business School, receiving his MBA in one-and-a-half years despite the ongoing campus student riots (and despite Alex's ongoing cantankerous confrontations with the rioters).
In 1969 he married Gwendolyn Brooks of Darien, Connecticut. At first the family settled in Cos Cob, Connecticut, where Alex founded a business and worked for the next ten years.
In 1982 Alex and his brother Charlie bought High Standard Incorporated, a maker of architectural exterior cladding based in Dublin, New Hampshire. Alex ran the company with brio and zest for 33 years. He was proud of High Standard's products, and he was the kind of salesman who could have sold elevators to the residents of a trailer park. After High Standard's sale to Nudo Products Inc. in 2013, he retained a management role until his death.
Alex's skills as a hunter and fisherman were legendary. He was perpetual "high rod" on the famous salmon rivers of New Brunswick, Canada. He did all his bird hunting with a beautifully wrought .410 shotgun, the smallest of shotgun gauges, a gift from his groomsmen. Alex rarely missed, with cast or blast, and what he pulled up or brought down, he cooked brilliantly.
In 2010 Alex's pulmonary health began to degenerate. In 2013 he received a double lung transplant. It was, in fact, a testament to his strength and fitness. At 71, Alex was the oldest man to ever undergo a lung transplant. And it might be said that this was the second time he'd put his life on the line for his country.
Fifty years ago, after his service as a Swift Boat skipper, Alex was given command of a sea-going tug in the South Pacific. Unbeknownst to Alex or his sailors the tug was involved in a top secret and still not fully declassified Navy program called Project SHAD. The purpose of Project SHAD ("Shipboard Hazard And Defense") was to test the U.S. Navy's surface ships for vulnerability to chemical and biological warfare.
There is evidence that the supposedly innocuous chemical and biological agents used in SHAD actually had deleterious health effects on the Project's unwitting experimental subjects ? in particular on pulmonary health. The Department of Defense denies any connection between SHAD and subsequent illness or mortality. But the Veterans Administration provides full health benefits for ex-servicemen who were exposed to Project SHAD tests.
Alex was the first to laugh off this incongruity between words and deeds. "I don't care what the government admits to," he said, "as long as they admit me to the hospital."
Indeed Alex was able to laugh off nearly all of the arduous medical treatments and grueling side effects he endured. "Better than the known alternative!" he'd say.
Alex is survived by his two sons, Matthew and Marshall, who were with him when he died; his wife of 48 years, Gwendolyn; his grandchildren Chloe, Sophie, Ben, Lillian and Eaton; his four siblings, Bill Bass of Washington DC, and Kitty Cloud, Charlie Bass and Posy Bass all of Peterborough; his step-mother Rosaly Bass; eight nieces and nephews, innumerable cousins including his long-time friend Marshall Field V. And his bird dog Missy.
A Memorial celebrating his life will be held at the Hilltop Golf Course, formally the Monadnock Country Club, 49 High St., Peterborough, on Sunday October 1, from 3-5 p.m. All friends and family are welcome.
In lieu of flowers please consider a donation to the Atlantic Salmon Foundation, Saint Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada E5B358, in Alex's name.
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Bassett Family Association Database
1942 - 2017 (75 years)