John E. Littleton, lawyer, musician

John E. Littleton, 86, a Philadelphia lawyer and a viola player for suburban ensembles, died June 21 of complications of prostate cancer at the health center of the Quadrangle in Haverford, the retirement community where he had lived since 2002.

From 1972 to 1981, Mr. Littleton was bond counsel to the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency.

Born in Philadelphia, he graduated from the Haverford School and Harvard College and became a World War II naval officer.

During the Battle of Okinawa in April 1945, his daughter Joanna said, his landing craft support vessel came to the aid of the USS Bush.

According to a history of that destroyer, Mr. Littleton's LCS64 rescued 89 Bush enlisted men and 6 officers, outnumbering his crew of 71.

The destroyer's history states that Japanese planes drove rescuing ships away from the Bush, but when it became dark the rescuers returned.

His daughter said that, as his vessel's navigator, Mr. Littleton had taken the geographical coordinates that allowed his ship to return to where the Bush's survivors were now foundering in the water.

It was his first action, she said, barely four months before the end of the war in the Pacific.

Mr. Littleton earned a bachelor's degree in jurisprudence in 1948 from the New College of Oxford University and a bachelor's in civil law there in 1949 and, she said, "was called to the bar of England and Wales at Lincoln's Inn in 1950."

Mr. Littleton passed the Pennsylvania bar the same year, his daughter said, but noted that "he must have crammed enough to pass the Pennsylvania bar exam without having gone through an American law school."

After working at the law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, his daughter said, he clerked for State Supreme Court Justice Charles A. Jones in 1952 and 1953.

Mr. Littleton married a great-granddaughter of Charles Darwin's, joined the Philadelphia firm of Schnader Harrison, was elected a partner in 1961, and retired in 1990.

After studying with Max Aronoff, a violist with the Curtis String Quartet, Mr. Littleton served on the board of Aronoff's New School of Music from 1962 until it became part of Temple University's Boyer College of Music and Dance in 1986.

In retirement, Mr. Littleton was a member of the Lower Merion Symphony Orchestra, the Musical Coterie of Wayne, and the Rose Valley Chorus & Orchestra.

Besides his daughter, he is survived by his wife, Cecily; sons Francis and Charles; a daughter, Sophie Behlen; a brother; and five grandchildren.

A memorial was set for 11 a.m. July 25 at St. George's Episcopal Church, 1 W. Ardmore Ave., Ardmore.

Donations may be made to the Community Music Scholars Program, Temple University Music Preparation Division, 1515 Market St., Suite 501, Philadelphia 19102.