Ships
- USS Missouri (BB-63) Captain, 6 July 1988 – 13 June 1990
John J. Chernesky was a United States Navy captain whose last sea command was the battleship Missouri. He assumed command on 6 July 1988, while the ship was moored at Pearl Harbor, and he remained her commanding officer until 13 June 1990. The tour closed a career that had begun in submarines in 1967 and ended with his retirement the same year he left the battleship.
He was born in 1944 and came from Hampton, New Hampshire. In 1967 he received a bachelor of science degree in nautical science and mathematics from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and that year he completed submarine officer training at New London, Connecticut. In 1978 he did further study in management at George Washington University.
His early sea duty was in the submarine force. He served as assistant engineer and communications officer in Tench, as communications officer and engineer in Wahoo, and as engineer and weapons officer in Blueback. From 1971 to 1973 he was flag lieutenant and aide to the commander of the Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet. He then went to Bonefish as navigator, operations officer, and executive officer.
He shifted to surface ships in the late 1970s. He was executive officer of the guided-missile cruiser Dale, commanding officer of the frigate Patterson, and executive officer of the battleship Iowa when that ship returned to commission in 1984. From December 1985 to May 1988 he served in Washington as director of Navy programs in the Office of the Chief of Legislative Affairs.
On 6 July 1988 he relieved Captain James A. Carney as commanding officer of Missouri at Pearl Harbor. Two days later the battleship got under way for Exercise RIMPAC 88 in Hawaiian waters, then steamed for Long Beach. In the months that followed she made a dependents’ cruise toward Coronado, lay at Naval Air Station North Island while the Pacific surface force changed commanders on board, and spent time in the southern California operating areas for cruise-missile training. The ship he commanded already carried a long public history. She had gone into commission in 1944 under William M. Callaghan. On 2 September 1945, with Stuart S. Murray as captain, the Japanese instrument of surrender was signed on her deck in Tokyo Bay, in the presence of Chester William Nimitz and William Frederick Halsey, Jr. Service records also associate Chernesky’s last months in command with RIMPAC 1990. On 13 June 1990 Captain Albert Lee Kaiss relieved him.
After leaving active duty he stayed near the waterfront and then moved into health-care management. He was general manager of the Los Angeles Shipyard Corporation from 1990 to 1992 and executive director of the California Manufacturing Technology Center from 1992 to 1994. In February 1994 he joined Salick Health Care, first directing operations at the Cedars-Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Center and later serving as the company’s chief operating officer.
Chernesky died of cancer at his home in San Pedro, California, on 13 December 2001, at the age of 57, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. His decorations included the Legion of Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Navy Commendation Medal, and the Navy Achievement Medal, each with a gold star denoting a second award. He was survived by his wife, Melinda, a daughter, Karen, a son, John David, his brother Tom, and his mother, Mary.