It is with profound sorrow that the family announces the passing of William R. Saccone of Westport, MA who died peacefully at home on April 7, 2026. He was the devoted husband of Rosayne "Rosie" with whom he shared a wonderful marriage of 45 years. They were inseparable and shared a lifetime of boating, fishing, gardening and traveling. Bill honed his culinary arts skills taught by his family and his private dinner parties were the stuff of local legend. He was generous to friends and family to a fault.
He was a member of the National Engineering Society and was a Professional Registered Engineer in Massachusetts. After high school, he joined the United States Marine Corps during the Korean Conflict. He was assigned to the Second Fleet as a Seagoing Marine and served as an orderly to the admiral on the battleships Iowa, Wisconsin and New Jersey and crossed the Artic Circle on the U.S.S. North Hampton. Bill was honorably discharged with rank of sergeant.
He graduated from the MA Technical Radio School and received his third and second class radio licenses. He received an engineering degree from the Lowell Institute, a subsidiary of MIT. He stayed on at MIT completing research and development at the Draper Labs testing inertial guidance systems on Polaris missiles. He moved onto the Nuclear Physics Lab under the guidance of Professor Martin Deutsch, a mentor and friend. He worked on the Compton Experiment which was conducted at Harvard University Electron Accelerator at Cornell University at Brookhaven where designed and implemented measuring electronic tools required for testing.
NASA recruited Bill to develop and design kick stage computers for the Apollo flight. He completed his career at the Naval Underwater Systems in Newport, RI working on ADCAP torpedoes and countermeasures for Trident submarines. Bill was a dreamer, a grand storyteller and a visionary and he retained his keen intellect to the end of his life.
Mass of Christian Burial to which relatives and friends are invited will be celebrated on Monday, April 27, 2026 at St. John the Baptist Church, Westport at 10:00 A.M.
Interment to follow in Beech Grove Cemetery, Westport.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital at https://www.stjude.org/