Gerald F Deconto

Captain, United States Navy, director of the current operations and plans branch of the Navy Command Center. He was organising the Navy's response to the attack on New York when the aircraft reached the Pentagon.

The son of a schoolteacher and a town building inspector, he took a degree in physics at the Naval Academy in 1979, where he played rugby and was known as Fish. He served in the Excel as damage control assistant, engineering officer and executive officer, and became operations officer of the Fresno in 1982. He took a master's in mechanical engineering at Monterey, was chief engineer of the Hewitt, aide to the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Surface Warfare, and executive officer of the Lake Erie.

He was assistant operations officer for Carrier Group 7, took a second master's at the Naval War College, commanded the Simpson from 1998 to 2000 and was chief of staff of the Standing Naval Force Mediterranean until May 2001. Unknown to him, he had screened for major command on the first of September.

What he wanted was his own ship again. His mother said: once they're captain, they're never satisfied with another job. That's what he was waiting for.

The weekend before, he drove to a family reunion in Connecticut and then took his mother home to Cape Cod. That night he emailed to say he had arrived safely in Alexandria. She had just opened an email account; it was the first message she ever received, and the last.

He is buried at Arlington.

His mother Patricia, his brothers David and Raymond, his sisters Marie and Dale, five nieces and a nephew.