Lt William J Gray Jr, was on a dive bombing mission in Germany. On his way back to base after releasing his bomb load, he and his "Yellow" flight members were providing top cover at 7,000 feet for "Red" and "Blue" flights when an enemy truck was spotted on the road leading into the town of Lindau. He received permission from Yellow leader, Lt David E Harding, to pursue and strafe the truck. His first and second passes were ineffective - the truck wasn't burning. On his third pass he failed to pull up soon enough and caught a wing tip on the tree tops causing him to cartwheel into the ground and burned about 200 yards from the road.



In October 1948, American Graves Registration Command investigators located the crash site about 3 miles northwest of Lindau. They recovered four machine guns whose serial numbers matched those on Lt Gray's P-47. It wasn't until April 2016 that his remains were recovered which were embedded in the roots of a tree that had overgrown the crash site. In January 2017, the remains were confirmed to be Lt Gray's and he was repatriated with his family in Washington state.



Awards: DFC, AM (6OLC), PH.