James Sidle Elfelt, 62, a retired Navy rear admiral who served as executive officer of the battleship New Jersey off Vietnam in the 1960s, died Nov. 30 at his home in Arlington. He had cancer.

He was commissioned in 1952. Over the next decade, his assignments included tours in Washington with the Bureau of Personnel, and at sea as commander of a coastal minesweeper Warbler, executive officer of a destroyer and as missile and weapons officer aboard the heavy cruiser Helena. 

After commanding the destroyer Henderson in Southeast Asian waters in 1966 and 1967, Adm. Elfelt was named executive officer of the New Jersey. He held that post through the ship's recommissioning and its service in the Vietnam conflict.