Milo Gaines Parker Jr. was born at Talbotton, Georgia, the son of Milo Gaines Parker Sr. and Virginia Lunsden.
Ensign Parker died January 18, 1945 on a F4U-1D stationed aboard VBF-85 USS Shangri-La CV-38 en route to Panama. On 18 January 1945 during a rocket attack on a towed spar, planes flown by Ensign Milo Gaines Parker, (Al), USNR, (338029), and by Ensign Robert Statts Sherman, (Al), USNR, (346980), collided. Ensign Sherman made a successful water landing and was rescued by an escorting destroyer. Ensign Parker crashed into the sea and was not recovered.
Ensign Parker is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at East Coast Memorial, New York.
The Chattanooga Times, January 29, 1945
A Chattanooga navy flier, Ensign Milo G. Parker Jr., son of M.G. Parker Sr., chief electricians mate, United States Navy, and Mrs. Parker, who reside on Lee Highway, was killed in the crash of his navy plane at sea on Jan. 18, the Navy Department informed his parents. Ensign Parker, graduate of Chattanooga High School and former employe of the J.C. Penney Company here, enlisted in the navy along with his father in May, 1942. He received his wings and commission last January at Corpus Christi, Tex., and visited his mother last December. His father, formerly employed by the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, has been on duty at Camp Parks, Shoemaker, Calif. He arrived home on leave yesterday afternoon.
While on leave in Chattanooga last December, Ensign Parker was pictured by The Times when he visited a schoolmate, Ensign James M. Howard, navy flier and son of Mr. and Mrs. Joe Howard, Signal Mountain, Ensign Howard received his commission upon graduation from Cornell University last December, and both spent the Christmas holidays at home. The Navy Department did not disclose Ensign Parker’s station or the theater in which his death occurred, it was stated.
- Rank: Ensign
- Date of birth: 22 October 1923
- Date of death: 18 January 1945
- County: Hamilton
- Hometown: Signal Mountain
- Service Branch: Navy
- Conflict: World War II
- Burial/Memorial Location: East Coast Memorial, New York, New York
- Location In Memorial: Pillar XII, Top Panel
- Contact us to sponsor Milo G. Parker Jr.
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