Ralph Jackson Gray was the son of Cecil Maynard “Dan” Gray and Bessie Lee Jones.
He was killed in the South Pacific. He served on the U.S.S. Prometheus and was transferred to the U.S.S. Solace for medical treatment on 20 October 1944. He died aboard two days later from multiple injuries, received in the line of duty.
The Greeneville Sun, 8 November 1944
Ralph Jackson Gray, SF 3c, U.S. Navy, died October 22 from wounds received in action in the Pacific, his father, Mrs. Cecil Maynard Gray, Afton, Rt. 1, has been notified by the Navy Department. Part of the telegram received reads as follow: “The Navy Department deeply regrets to inform you of the death of your son, Ralph Jackson Gray, Ship Fitter Third Class, USN, on October, 1944, as a result of extreme multiple injuries while in the service of his country. His remains were interred in an Allied cemetery on an island in the Pacific, pending cessation of hostilities.”
Petty Officer Gray, a veteran of almost four years of foreign service enlisted in the Navy on his twenty-first birthday. After nine weeks of boot training at Norfolk, Va., he was assigned to sea duty and spent two years in the Atlantic. He was then transferred to the Pacific and had been in that theater of war for the past twenty months. He was in the Merchant Marine. The last letter received by his family was written on October 18.
Besides his father he is survived by two brothers, James Gray of Detroit, Mich., and Herbert Gray of Afton, and two sisters, Norma Gray and Mrs. Carol Tucker.
- Rank: Shipfitter Third Class
- Date of birth: 21 December 1919
- Date of death: 22 October 1944
- County: Greene
- Hometown: Afton
- Service Branch: Navy
- Division/Assignment: U.S.S. Prometheus (AR-3)
- Theater: Pacific
- Conflict: World War II
- Awards: Purple Heart
- Burial/Memorial Location: Pleasant Hill Methodist Cemetery, Horse Creek, Greene County, TN
- Location In Memorial: Pillar IX, Bottom Panel
- Contact us to sponsor Ralph J. Gray
Image Gallery
Click a thumbnail below to view at full size.
