BRODERICK, JOHN C.

John C. “Jake” Broderick, a highly decorated World War II veteran who became a Washington-based executive with the Leo A. Daly Co., an international architectural engineering firm, died Sept. 5 [2012] at his home in Reston. He was 89.

He had complications from a ruptured colon, said his daughter-in-law, Janet Broderick.

Mr. Broderick served in the Marine Corps in the Pacific during World War II and participated in combat at the battles of Midway, Guadalcanal and Bougainville. He received the Navy Cross, the highest award for valor after the Medal of Honor, as a private first class assigned to the Second Marine Raider Battalion at Bougainville Island.

On Nov. 1, 1943, he led an attack against an enemy position that was preventing his platoon’s advancement. “With grim determination,” his citation read, he fired his rifle and killed two Japanese ammunition carriers, then “fearlessly rushing forward, hurled a hand grenade into the enemy emplacement and killed several more hostile soldiers.”

Despite leg injuries, he then helped fellow Marines clear a machine gun nest. His other decorations included the Purple Heart.

He told a Marine Corps combat reporter at the time, “I was seriously glad I had that grenade. They’re handy things to have.”

John Carroll Broderick was a native of Grundy Center, Iowa, and a 1948 architectural engineering graduate of Iowa State University.

In 1952, Mr. Broderick joined Leo A. Daly at its headquarters in Omaha. He transferred to the Washington office in 1970 to work on a building for Children’s National Medical Center. He retired in 1993 as senior vice president and director of operations for the East Coast and Europe.

He was a past president of the Washington Building Congress.

Survivors include his wife of 62 years, Dorothy Shevel Broderick of Reston; six children, Michael Broderick of Aurora, W.Va., David Broderick of Reston, Mary Burgess and Kathy Orsa, both of Clifton, Timothy Broderick of Linden, Va., and Tom Broderick of Manassas; a brother; 12 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.