By Dixon Bledsoe
When Tom Brokaw wrote The Greatest Generation, it became an instant best-seller because it moved people and reminded us of what made America so successful in meeting the challenges of the 20th Century.
Art Gregg is someone Brokaw would like. A farm boy from Ohio, a young Army Air Corps fighter pilot dodging Japanese Zeros not far from Mt. Everest and shooting one down with only two of six guns working.
He was married 58 years and spent 45 good, hard years on the farm. His quiet demeanor suggests modesty not always associated with people who do remarkable things.
In 1998, Gregg wrote about his experiences in a piece entitled, “Five Years of Military History – Memoirs by Captain Art Gregg.”
It is, in essence, a diary about the life of someone who knows that in a time of crisis, it is best to just jump into the fray and do the job. Then the quiet pride in a mission truly accomplished allows one to return to tackle the challenges of farming corn, beans, and alfalfa in America’s heartland.
Gregg, 92, makes three-weekly trips to Silverton Fitness to work out. Despite losing his beloved wife, Marguerite, in 2004 after 58 years of marriage, he is not a man alone.
Strong in his faith and part of a group that has lunch every Thursday at different restaurants, the active member of Silverton’s First Baptist Church has many friends around a town he moved to 16 years ago with his wife.
He volunteers at Silverton Hospital a half day every week in the materials department, a place her refers to as “shipping and receiving.”
In his memoirs, Gregg writes, “Our first stop in May of 1942 was in Kano, Nigeria and the next morning Gen. Doolittle was in the mess hall with us.
“None of us talked to him and we didn’t know he was on his way home from the raid on Tokyo.”
On that same trip, he recalls “After a few good night’s rest we headed north down the Nile River which had a strip of green several hundred yards wide on either side. The RAF officer at the field wanted us to leave as soon as we were fueled up but Lt. Pike said no as his men needed rest in good clean quarters.
“What we didn’t know was that the German General Rommel was pushing east fast toward Cairo. He never got there because General Montgomery sent the Germans running and finally defeated them in North Africa. When we came into the field, we flew over the pyramids and the Sphinx. They looked big even from the air.”
It was a long way from Palmyra, Ohio to the Gold Coast of Africa, the Burma Hump, and Chunking, China, where Gregg served under the command of General Claire Lee Chenault, leader of the 14th Air Force and famous for his “Flying Tigers.”
It seemed an even longer trip to Silverton some 51 years later. But the trip to Silverton was worth it for Gregg and his late wife.
“We liked it immediately here in Silverton. We walked a lot of places easily and it reminded us of a little town in Ohio called Lakeside, where we vacationed each year on Lake Erie after hard work on the farm,” Gregg explained.
Any regrets about his life were left behind years ago.
“Rumors had it that we were to get Jets before too long and I was looking forward to that. I had considerable pressure put on me to stay in the Air Force and receive a regular commission,” he wrote.
“I loved flying but I did not like military life or the social life that was expected of you.”
Separating from the Air Force in December 1945, he received a bonus of $500 a year for a total of $2,200.
In 1946, Gregg wrote that “Marguerite entered the picture and the events from there on would require a book to tell of all the good things after that.”
Gregg has three children- a stepson, Jim Ewers in Utah; a son, Charles Gregg in Ohio, and daughter Ann Snelling of Silverton. He has seven grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
“My dad is an amazing person and a great father. I would describe him as hard-working, trustworthy, a man of integrity, a spiritual leader in the home and community, and a man of few words but one who has wisdom to impart,” Snelling said.
“I grew up knowing that I was loved and that my dad was solid, dependable and an exemplary person. It is my great pleasure to call him my dad.”
