During the course of World War II, an estimated 29 percent of U.S. military casualties (more than 92,000 servicepersons) died in non-combat incidents, i.e., aircraft accidents, non-aircraft accidents, diseases and other fatal incidents. Overseas and stateside, non-combat events remained an inescapable realities. Nearly 15,000 young airmen died in training accidents without ever leaving the United States, a testament to the perils of mastering flight.

Sudden death exacts its own peculiar grief, a reminder of mortality’s constant presence to those left behind. In the fall of 1943, a 22-year old officer became a casualty of what USMC Corporal Eugene B. Sledge called “chance’s strange arithmetic.”

A Son of the Constitution State:

The firstborn child of Kenneth Philbrick Gregg and Laicita Worden Gregg arrived at the couple’s Greenwich, Fairfield County, Connecticut home on March 23, 1922. His father’s namesake, Kenneth Philbrick Gregg, Jr., became the older brother in quick succession. By 1925, Kenneth, Jr. and sisters Laicita and Phyllis, kept the household lively and filled with laughter.

Kenneth attended public schools in Wilton, Connecticut, graduating from Hillhouse High School in New Haven. In 1940, he was living in Hartford as a first year student at the University of Connecticut and member of the State Guard. After the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941, Kenneth left school and enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) on April 14, 1942.

Air Cadet Gregg received his basic training at Walnut Ridge, Arkansas and pre-flight training at Maxwell Field, Alabama. On March 25, 1943, he was commissioned at Craig Field in Sumner, Alabama where he received his pilot’s wings. Ten months later, Second Lieutenant Gregg was a pursuit pilot and Assistant Operations Officer of the USAAF Airfield in Jackson, Mississippi.

Returning from a Mercy Mission:

On December 28, 1943, 2Lt. Gregg and Lieutenant Claude C. King were returning to Jackson in an AT-6B "Texan," #41-17217, having completed a mercy mission to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The AT-6B, or T-6, was an American single engine advanced trainer aircraft. In use, the T-6 yielded mediocre performance in combat. Ultimately, the “Texan” has been heralded as the best fighter training aircraft ever made.

When the officers failed to arrive as scheduled on December 28, their flight was listed as missing and a search ensued. Two days later on December 30, their bodies were found in the plane’s wreckage eight miles north of Jackson in Madison County, Mississippi.

Kenneth Philbrick Gregg, Jr., 22, was promoted to First Lieutenant posthumously. He was interred at Arlington National Cemetery in Section 8, Site 6373 on January 3, 1944. Kenneth was survived by his parents and two sisters.

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars Project, a national volunteer effort to write the stories of all 400,000+ U.S. WW II fallen on Together We Served and on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? These stories will be accessible via smartphone app that will allow people to visit at any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen serviceperson’s name and read his/her story. (https://www.storiesbehindthestars.org/)If you have any details, photos or corrections for this story, please contact drbaker50@charter.net. Stories Behind the Stars: Pamela C. Baker, Ph.D., Contributing Author. SBTS Project/Connecticut/Fairfield

References:

Ancestryinstitutions.org. 1920 United States Federal Census.

Ancestryinstitutions.org. 1930 United States Federal Census.

Ancestryinstitutions.org. 1940 United States Federal Census.

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/110696

https://www.fantasyofflight.com/collection/

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/49193393/kenneth-philbrick-gregg

https://www.realclearhistory.com/articles/2019/02/12/staggering_statistics_15000_us_airmen_killed_in_training_in_ww_ii_412.html

“Lieutenant Gregg is Killed in Crash of Training Plane: Hartford Flyer’s Body Found in Wreckage Near Madison, Miss,” 1943, Hartford Courant, Hartford, Connecticut, December 30.

“Psalm of an Army Pilot,” 1945, Hartford Courant, Hartford, Connecticut, December 28.

Sledge, E. B. With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa, Random House Publishing Company, Inc., New York, 1981.

U.S., Find a Grave Index, 1600s-Current. Photograph, Arlington National Cemetery Headstone, Collection of Brian Nilsson, February 2023.

U.S., National Cemetery Interment Control Forms, 1928-1962.

U.S., World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946.

Kenneth P Gregg Jr