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Early Life and Family

Charles Albert Wilson was born on July 23, 1908 at 2404 Lamotte Street in Wilmington, Delaware. A family photo suggests that he may have gone by his middle name. He was the son of Joseph Howell Wilson, Sr. (a Pennsylvania Railroad machinist, 1871–1925) and Mary Rebecca Wilson (Rebecca M. Wilson in some sources, 1881–1910). His mother had immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1896. Charles had an older sister Marion Louise Wilson (later Ash, 1903–1979) and an older brother Joseph Howell Wilson, Jr. (nicknamed Bud, 1905–1922).

The Wilson family circa 1909. From left to right: Marion, Mary (Rebecca), Charles (Albert), Joseph Jr. (Bud), Joseph Sr. (Courtesy of Michael McGregor)

The Wilson family was recorded on the census on April 27, 1910 living at 1718 Lancaster Avenue in Wilmington. Later that year, on September 21, 1910, Charles’s mother died of tuberculosis. On March 21, 1912, Charles’s father remarried to Annie E. Hickman (née Duffey, c. 1874–1940). By the time of the next census in January 1920, the family was living at 614 Concord Avenue in Wilmington.

The early 1920s were difficult for Charles. Charles’s brother Joseph H. Wilson, Jr. died of peritonitis and appendicitis on February 24, 1922, aged 16. According to Charles’s son, he blamed his stepmother for not seeking medical treatment for Joseph quickly enough. The following year, his older sister married and moved out of the house. Joseph H. Wilson, Sr. became ill in early 1924 and had to retire from the Pennsylvania Railroad. Beginning in September 1924, he was hospitalized at the Delaware State Hospital in Farmhurst, leaving Charles living with his stepmother.

Charles ran away from home on May 20, 1925, aged 17. His family speculated that he had joined the circus. On May 26, 1925, his father died. The following day, an article in The Evening Journal reported:

“The death of Joseph H. Wilson, aged 55 years, 614 Concord avenue, brought to light the fact that Charles A. Wilson, the 17-year-old son, has been missing from the home since last Wednesday when the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey circus played in Wilmington. News of Mr. Wilson’s death has been radiologued by the boy’s [stepmother] in the hope that the young man may be found before his father is buried.”

Over 17 years later, a U.S. Army officer visited the Wilmington Morning News building, ostensibly looking for a lead on a friend he hadn’t seen for half his lifetime. Wilhelmina Syfrit recounted the story he told in her column, “One to Another.” According to Syfrit, when Charles ran away:

“He became from that moment the hero of one of the adventure books in which he had found refuge from a lonely youth.

“He took the name of Stephen McGregor. He went to the West of which he had read. He worked days and nights and months as a migrate [sic] harvest worker. He went to foreign ports until the beckoning finger of adventure pointed to an Army recruiting post. It offered a chance for Stephen McGregor to make good. And Stephen McGregor did.”

Stephen McGregor in the late 1920s or early 1930s as a trooper in the 7th Cavalry Regiment (Courtesy of Michael McGregor)

New Identity and Military Career

When he reinvented himself, McGregor added four years to his age, giving his date of birth as July 23, 1904. He claimed his place of birth (and that of his father) was Texas. Perhaps in a nod to his roots, McGregor stated that his mother was born in Delaware rather than Germany. An April 23, 1930 census record recorded Corporal McGregor at Fort Bliss, Texas. At the time, he was a member of the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division. (In a quirk of fate, his son Michael McGregor served in the 7th Cavalry during the Vietnam War.)

Wilhelmina Syfrit wrote:

“He became a crack polo player and rider. He was chosen as one of the cavalry instructors. There again was his opportunity. Nights and odd hours were devoted to acquiring the formal education.

“A few miles from his post in the middle west he also found the modern version of the blonde sweetheart of Stephen McGregor, and legalized his chosen name, to give it to her.”

Likely taken on their wedding day, this photo depicts Stephen and Alice McGregor with Alice's mother Ursula Buczkowski and Father Casimir Witucki (Alice's uncle and officiant at the wedding), with two unidentified at right (Courtesy of Michael McGregor)

According to a July 11, 1944 article in The South Bend Tribune, in 1934 McGregor “was sent to Culver Military academy, Culver, Ind., from Fort Bliss, Texas”. McGregor was an instructor there. He was commissioned as a officer on either August 19, 1935 or November 1, 1940. McGregor married Alice A. Buczkowski (1910–1997) in South Bend, Indiana on September 4, 1937. According to their son, his parents met at a Halloween Party in South Bend. She complimented him on his costume and he explained that it was his uniform!

The McGregors were recorded on the census on April 26, 1940, living on College Avenue in Culver. McGregor was listed as having completed two years of college. According to The South Bend Tribune article, McGregor “was made a first lieutenant Nov. 1, 1940 [sic], and sent to Fort Hayes, Columbus, O[hio].” The following year, Alice gave birth to a son, Stephen (1941–2005) in Columbus. In 1943, the couple had a second son, Michael.

Stephen McGregor's wife Alice and his sons Stephen and Michael in a 1943 photo (Courtesy of Michael McGregor)

The South Bend Tribune article stated that McGregor was transferred from Fort Hayes “to the cavalry replacement center at Fort Riley, Kan., and later to Charleston, S. C.” McGregor’s son recalled that his father was the S-1 (personnel officer) in the 3rd Cavalry Brigade of the 2nd Cavalry Division. The division had been activated at Fort Riley on April 1, 1941. With the obsolesce of the horse cavalry in modern warfare, the division was inactivated at Fort Riley on July 15, 1942; the 3rd Cavalry Brigade’s men were incorporated into the new 9th Armored Division, activated that same day. It is unclear if McGregor was still with the unit at that point.

By November 1942, when he visited Delaware again, McGregor had been promoted to captain. At the time, Wilhelmina Syfrit described him this way:

“The easy grace, the tanned skin of this six-foot three soldier spoke of years in open spaces. But more than that, there was the quiet assurance of a man who has learned to live within himself, and did so.”

McGregor as a lieutenant or captain in the 1940s (Courtesy of Michael McGregor)

Company Commander & Overseas Service

Michael McGregor wrote: “My mother told me several times that McGregor turned down opportunities to stay stateside in training command because as a soldier he felt it was his responsibility to be in the action.”

Captain McGregor was the first commanding officer of the 461st Amphibian Truck Company (referred to in some sources as the 461st Amphibious Truck Company), a Transportation Corps unit activated at the Charleston Port of Embarkation, South Carolina on July 6, 1943. Equipped with the 2½-ton amphibious vehicle referred to as the D.U.K.W. or “Duck,” the company’s role was, per Table of Organization and Equipment No. 55-37: “To transfer cargo from shipside to shore dumps where pier facilities are not available.”

According to a history of the 461st published by the U.S. Army Transportation Corps:

“The company participated in amphibious training at the amphibious training center, Moultrieville, South Carolina, from July to November 1943. From there it proceeded to the New York Port of Embarkation and on New Years Day 1944, it sailed for England on the Queen Elizabeth. It was assigned to the 6th Engineer Special Brigade where it conducted more amphibious training. It was assigned to the 280th Quartermaster Battalion for administration but the 149th Engineer Combat Battalion for operations.”

In early 1944, while his company was stationed in the town of Torquay in Devon, England, Captain McGregor befriended Captain E.C. Hopkinson, a British soldier who had been decorated with the Military Cross while serving in 1st Battalion of the East Lancashire Regiment during World War I. Prior to D-Day, Captain Hopkinson presented Captain McGregor with three gifts. One was a cigarette case engraved with a poem:

“Capt. S. McGregor / Thus will I remember / The place where fate threw me, / The little English home / Which looked out on the sea, / The brightly colored garden, / The cup of mellowed wine, / And the Brother Soldier / Who became a friend of mine.”

“Capt. E.C. Hopkinson, M.C.”

Hopkinson also gave McGregor two books: Spectamur Agendo, which Hopkinson had written about his World War I unit, and another that he had cowritten,* Sword, Lance and Bayonet*. In the latter, Hopkinson enclosed a note:

“To you, who, as we did in our youth, are to go across the water into battle may this bring all good fortune. On that day we, the older generation, hand over to you to finish off what is beyond us.

“In our youth in battle we gave all we had to give. Then war-won we made mistakes. But credit us that in age we once again held fast [illegible] darkest adversity. […]

“I only wish I could see you go, as recorded in this book; sabres flashing in the sun, [pennants] fluttering in the breeze.”

A 461st Amphibian Truck Company morning report stated that the unit “Debarked 1900, 4 May 44, Slapton Sands, Maneuver Area to perform a problem.” Presumably, that was during Exercise Fabius I, a rehearsal for the Omaha Beach landing.

A diagram of planned units for Omaha Beach showed the elements of the 461st scheduled to land at Dog Red beginning around three hours into the invasion and Easy Green about four hours into the invasion.

An August 8, 1944 letter by Captain Hopkinson to Alice McGregor suggested that Captain McGregor welcomed his unit’s role in the invasion: “He had for some time back been fretting that he had only command of a ‘duck’ company as a regular officer but that had all changed when his company was ordered to lead his American army ashore.”

The 461st moved to Camp “D” in Dorchester, England on May 15, 1944 and boarded L.S.T.s (Landing Ship, Tank) at Portland Harbour, England on June 1. All five company officers and 153 enlisted men shipped out from Portland at 1500 hours on June 5, 1944.

Captain Hopkinson wrote Alice McGregor a letter the following day:

“As I lay awake this morning listening to the bombardment for, [illegible] the battle is about 90 miles from here, my doors & windows shook all night long, I remembered your husband said he would be grateful if I sent you a letter. I thought of him and his men for I imagine they were in the early waves of the landing.

“I have not seen him for some little time but one thing I shall always remember; when he was leaving here he at the last moment found time to come and say good bye to me. I knew how busy he was & it was such a nice thing of him to do. I can only tell you he was fit and well and looked a splendid soldier, going off as he should, “grim and gay”, for he knew what he had to face. […] I had seen a lot of him as he had often invited me up to his Mess and been to my home many an evening and I think I had made for him and [McGregor’s executive officer, 1st Lieutenant N.R.] Watkin a home from home.”

D-Day in Normandy

The 461st Amphibian Truck Company first went into action on D-Day in Normandy, June 6, 1944. The company morning report for that day stated:

“5 Off[icers] & 151 EM [Enlisted Men] disembarked LST's fr 0800 to 1200, 6 Jun 1944 under enemy shell & sniper fire. 1 off SWA [seriously wounded in action] by enemy shell. 17 Dukws out of 44 were missing. A large No. of prisoners were taken by other units, weather fr fair to cool & cloudy, morale high, movement of freight & personnel begins from ship to shore. Company worked on beach policing [cleanup] and moving obstacles.”

Sometime on June 6, Captain McGregor was killed in action or mortally wounded by enemy artillery. Various accounts have him being hit either on the beach or just offshore. It is also unclear how he survived after being hit. The morning report stated that Captain McGregor was “seriously wounded in action, evacuated and trfd [transferred]” to England.

Captain McGregor’s executive officer, 1st Lieutenant (later Captain) Nathaniel Ring Watkin, Jr. (1913–1974) told his son years later that he and McGregor were swimming offshore from the beach when McGregor was hit by artillery and killed instantly. (It’s unclear why they would have exited their D.U.K.W.s, but one possibility is that they were blocked by beach obstacles.)

The August 8, 1944 letter by Captain Hopkinson to Captain McGregor’s widow stated:

“I am indeed sorry to hear your husband was killed in the Landing. I had heard from Watkin [that] he had been hit but none of them knew if he had been badly wounded or killed. I am afraid I can give you little news. It is poor consolation I well know to you but he died as he would have wished at the head of his men and not out of sheer bravado but because he considered it the best place to ensure success for his company. His company I have heard did very well & it was he who made his company by his example and previous training; he was respected by them all.”

In the late 1990s, Michael McGregor contacted two enlisted men from his father’s unit. In a November 14, 1998 letter, one man, Dale Shultz, wrote to Michael sentiments that echoed what Captain Hopkinson had recorded over half a century earlier:

“Your dad was a brave man. I admired him very much. He taught some of us how to stay alive way before D Day. Thru his training he was tough and that brought some of us out of WWII. I was fairly close to him when they were shelling us plus small arms fire.”

The other, Paul Zeigler, told him in a phone conversation (paraphrased from Michael McGregor’s notes):

“On the beach he was standing, directing troops to get up—as everyone was on their bellies—and move forward. I moved and then looked back and saw a shell hit and killed him instantly.”

It remains unclear if Captain McGregor died just offshore, on the beach, while being transferred back to the fleet offshore, or at a medical treatment facility (hospital ship or hospital back in England). Alice McGregor received one notification that her husband was wounded, followed by another that he had been killed. However, his status was recorded on the official casualty list as killed in action rather than died of wounds. If accurate, that meant he died immediately after he was hit (as two eyewitnesses attested) and before reaching medical care.

Captain McGregor was buried at the U.S. Military Cemetery, Brookwood in England (Plot T, Row 1, Grave 24). He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart. After the war, Captain McGregor’s wife requested that his body remain overseas. He was reinterred at what is now referred to at the Cambridge American Cemetery (Plot C, Row 4, Grave 63).

Notes

Mother's Maiden Name

Mary R. Wilson’s maiden name is recorded as Johanns, Johuson, and Johannes in various sources.

Enlistment Date, Location, and Years of Service

It is unclear when McGregor joined the U.S. Army. Both the July 11, 1944 article in The South Bend Tribune and his sister’s statement indicate that McGregor spent 20 years as a career soldier prior to his death (though his sister also wrote that he enlisted in 1925). If his story to Wilhelmina Syfrit was true, after he ran away in May 1925, he spent months if not years wandering prior to joining the U.S. Army. Still, he must have enlisted by the late 1920s, since he was a corporal by April 23, 1930.

His enlistment location is unclear, but Captain McGregor’s name appeared on a Marshall County, Indiana casualty list, implying that he entered the service there or that it was his home of record. His son stated that he was commissioned while living in Culver, which is located in Marshall County.

**2nd Cavalry Division **

The American armed forces were segregated during World War II. Though it only existed briefly, the 2nd Cavalry Division was a rare example of a unit that was integrated at the brigade level. McGregor was an officer in the white 3rd Cavalry Brigade, while the 4th Cavalry Brigade was composed of black troops. However, only white soldiers were incorporated into the new 9th Armored Division in the summer of 1942. The following year, the 4th Cavalry Brigade was incorporated into a new 2nd Cavalry Division (Colored) which was inactivated in North Africa in 1944 without seeing combat.

Spelling of Last Name

1944 articles in the Wilmington newspapers and his sister Marion L. Ash’s statement erroneously spelled Captain McGregor’s last name as MacGregor. As a result, subsequent newspaper articles, the Delaware memorial volume, and the list of names in Veteran’s Memorial Park in New Castle all use that spelling.

Vehicles

An August 10, 1944 Journal-Every Evening article stated that “His last letter to Mrs. Ash, in March, mentioned that he was in charge of 30 tanks to be used in the invasion.” Most likely this error was due to confusion over the fact that Captain McGregor’s unit was equipped with amphibious trucks, but not tanks. The error was repeated in a story on Delaware’s D-Day fallen published for the 50th anniversary of the invasion. The July 11, 1944 article in The South Bend Tribune also described his unit erroneously, albeit as “an amphibious tractor company.”

Enlisted Men Participating in D-Day

According to company morning reports, 153 enlisted men from the 461st Amphibian Truck Company participated in the D-Day invasion. For reasons that are unclear, about ¼ of the company (45 of 198 enlisted men remained behind in England, with most of them rejoining the unit on June 13, 1944.

Captain Hopkinson’s Letter

The phrase “grim and gay” apparently referred to a quote from Winston Churchill describing the mentality of the ideal soldier. “Home from home” means “home away from home” in American English.

Morning Report Details of Transfer on June 6, 1944

The morning report stated that Captain McGregor was “seriously wounded in action, evacuated and trfd [transferred] to Central Records Br[anch] Casualty Division, AGO [Adjutant General’s Office], Hq, ETOUSA [European Theater of Operations, United States Army], APO 871.” In most cases, morning reports listed the hospitals that wounded personnel were transferred to. Although Headquarters E.T.O.U.S.A. (and Army Post Office 871) were located in Cheltenham, England, it seems unlikely that a seriously wounded soldier would have been transported there rather than to a closer hospital at a port along the southern coast of England. Indeed, it seems most likely that this entry was for administrative reasons since the company clerk would likely have no way of knowing which hospital he ended up at.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Michael McGregor and Michael McGregor, Jr. for supplying valuable information, documents and photos.

This piece is part of a series honoring fallen service members. Additional tributes by the author can be viewed here.

Bibliography

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Watkin, Nathaniel R. III. Phone interview on May 23, 2021.

Article last updated on July 15, 2021