Staff Sgt. James Herbert Ray, Jr. was a passenger on a United States Air Force C-124 Globemaster that crashed near Anchorage, Alaska on November 22, 1952, killing all 52 passengers aboard.
A melting glacial ice exposed enough of the wreckage in 2012 to be spotted by a passing Blackhawk helicopter on a training mission. Since then, 17 groups of remains have been identified through DNA testing, and Sgt. Ray’s was one of them.
Ray was born on February 18, 1916 in East Butler - son of James H. Ray, Sr. and Mary Lamison Ray. He later moved with his family to Nicola - a coal mining town now abandoned near Worthington.
Ray was drafted in the U.S. Army in February 1942 and assigned to the then-U.S. Army Air Corp, which shortly became the U.S. Army Air Force. Following World War II, he returned to his former job as a machinist at the Cooper-Bessemer Co. in Grove City before re-enlisting in the U.S. Air Force in 1947 when it became a separate military service.
Ray reported for duty at the Brookley Air Force Base in Mobile, Ala., where he met his future wife, Eva Hare. They were married in early 1952.
As in World War II, Ray’s Air Force service consisted primarily of overseeing the loading, securing and unloading of air cargo. He spent much of World War II in the Azores with the Air Transport Command and flying on cargo planes into various parts of the European Theater. In his new role, he worked with cargo going to the Berlin Airlift, regularly flying into Berlin from the beginning of the Airlift in June 1948 until the Airlift’s conclusion on September 30, 1949.
Ray’s daughter, Jamie Swift, was born after his death and now resides in Pensacola, Fla.
Other family members still living include two sisters: Martha Rider Ellenberger and Shirley Hardies; and four brothers: George, Perry, Richard and Donald.
Wife Eva died in 1966 and others close to him no longer alive include his parents; three sisters: Sara Ellenberger, Elsie Couch and Bernice Joan Maley; and three brothers: Wilbert, William and Adam.
Friends will be received from 9AM until the time of funeral services at 11AM Saturday, July 5, 2014 at the F. Duane Snyder Funeral Home in Worthington.
Military honors will be given at the gravesite in the Worthington Presbyterian Cemetery with the USAF Honor Guard participating. The Reverend David Croyle will officiate.
To send an online condolence, visit www.snydercrissman.com