US Navy 2nd Class Machinist Mate George Anthony "Tony" Gregory was born in Mt. Carmel, Illinois on October 8, 1905, the son of George Lewis (1880-1967) and Irene Spaeth (1883-1956). His parents married in 1905 in Mt. Carmel but when WWI arrived George Louis enlisted in the USNR as a lieutenant. During the war, he was an instructor at the Gas Engine School. George and Irene would relocate to Pensacola in 1917 and settled in Old Warrington. When they lost most of their home in the Hurricane of 1926, they rented a house at 219 West Chase Street. By this time George had become a civil service machinist at NAS and Irene had taken a job as a teacher. In the meantime, Tony would graduate from Pensacola High School in 1928, followed by his siblings Gretchen 1929, Richard 1932, William 1935, Robert 1938, and Betty Irene 1943. Following graduation Tony went to work with his father at NAS as an apprentice machinist. By this time the family had purchased a home at 720 North Davis Street valued at $5,000. Ten years later nothing had changed much as to employment or living arrangements.
Then the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and America was transformed overnight. In response, Tony went down to the recruitment office at the Post Office building on the northeast of East Chase & Palafox Street. There, he enlisted in the US Navy twelve days after Pearl Harbor on December 19, 1941. His brother William had already enlisted in the US Army in 1940 with Richard following him in 1942. In turn, Robert Louis had become a "Silver Eagle", which was an enlisted pilot in the US Coast Guard.
Tony was rushed through basic training, many of them only receiving one to three weeks before being sent to the fleet where they were so desperately needed. Afterwards he was assigned to the destroyer (DD-434) USS Meredith. But the fate of the ship and its crew was directly tied to the battle for Guadalcanal, which had become desperate. As a result, more and more troops, aviation fuel, and supplies were being funneled to the embattled island. But this supply line needed protection, which fell to the limited carriers and to the fast-moving destroyers. On October 12, 1942, he and his ship became part of a convoy of two destroyers escorting several cargo ships along with tugboats pulling a barge loaded with barrels of aviation fuel and bombs destined for the American planes at Guadalcanal’s Henderson Field. But it was soon learned that enemy carriers were in the general vicinity, and if discovered it would leave the small convoy a sitting duck for their aircraft. The commander of the flotilla was aboard the Meredith and when he received the information, he decided that discretion was the better part of valor. But at the same time, he was painfully aware that the planes on Guadalcanal desperately needed those bombs and fuel loaded on their barges. So, despite the danger he chose to send the other ships back and press on with only the Meredith and the sea going tug USS Vireo. On the morning of October 15th, the two ships were sighted by an enemy patrol plane followed shortly thereafter by an enemy air strike. Before their arrival, the commander decided to abandon the slow-moving Vireo and take her crew aboard, He was preparing to torpedo the tug when enemy planes arrived from the Japanese carrier Zuikaku. The Meredith fought valiantly downing three enemy planes before succumbing to fourteen bombs and seven enemy torpedoes. Within minutes, Pensacola High School’s Tony Gregory and 179 of his shipmates were killed and sent to the bottom of the ocean with their ship. To add insult to injury, the Japanese planes returned to machine gun the survivors floundering helplessly in the water. Less than a third of the Meredith’s crew lived through the sinking and then spent three days in shark infested waters before they were rescued and returned to Pearl Harbor.
Ironically, Tony was killed by bombers from the enemy carrier Zuikaku, which was one of the six carriers that carried out the attack on Pearl Harbor. Throughout the war, the Navy wanted badly to sink all six of those ships out of pure revenge. The Zuikaku was the last one of them to be found and sunk, meeting her fate in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944.
In the meantime, Tony's family was notified in early 1943 that he was missing in action, and it was doubtful of a recovery. His family had a memorial stone placed in Barrancas National Cemetery in his honor. He is also listed on the Tablets of the Missing at Manila American Cemetery.
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