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Died. Admiral Thomas L. Sprague, 77, former air commander of the Pacific Fleet (1949-52), who earned the Legion of Merit after the battle of Truk in 1944, when he rigged a sail on the forecastle of his torpedoed and crippled aircraft carrier Intrepid, shifted his planes forward to catch the wind, and guided the ship to safety at Pearl Harbor; of blood clots in the lung; in Chula Vista, Calif.