page_title: John H. Sides
section_title: Guided-missile cruiser
hierarchical_section_title: John H. Sides / Father of the guided-missile Navy / Guided-missile cruiser
caption_attribution_description: English: The U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser USS Boston (CAG-1) fires a SAM-N-7 Terrier missile from her after launcher, during a training cruise, in August 1956.
context_page_description: Admiral John Harold Sides was a four-star admiral in the United States Navy who served as commander in chief of the United States Pacific Fleet from 1960 to 1963 and was known as the father of the Navy's guided-missile program.
context_section_description: Sides returned to sea in January 1956 as the first seagoing flag officer to command a guided-missile cruiser group, Cruiser Division 6, which included the guided-missile cruisers Boston and Canberra. At the long-delayed commissioning of the Navy's first guided-missile cruiser, Boston, in November 1955, Sides declared that the new ship marked a fundamental change in sea warfare because it was now possible to defend the fleet against bombers without losing several fighter planes in the process. "It is my personal opinion that within five years, the Navy will have dozens of guided missile ships. They should include not only vessels carrying antiaircraft missiles but also larger ships with surface to surface missile capability."
  In March 1956, the Navy displayed its first combat-ready antiaircraft missile, Terrier, aboard Boston. Sides said at the time that he foresaw within five years "a family of surface-to-air guided missile ships...dozens of ships of the cruiser, frigate, destroyer and battleship classes." Sides commanded the cruiser division for only four months before being recalled to Washington in April 1956 to become deputy to the special assistant to the Secretary of Defense for guided missiles, Eger V. Murphree.
caption: USS Boston (CAG-1) firing Terrier guided missile, August 1956.
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