Lieutenant Kenneth E. Reddy

Kenneth E. Reddy was the Co-pilot of the Hari Kari'er plane (Crew 11) with an individual marking : Angel with bomb.

His father was  John William Reddy and his mother was Hermione Bowman Anderson Reddy. The couple had 4 children, four sons. Ken was born in Bowie, Texas on 29 June 1920. He was the youngest of the 4 sons. James, Herman, Charles and Kenneth. He liked horse riding and fishing. The parents were rather poor people.

Kenneth's brother Charles

He was a student at Bowie High School were he graduated in 1937 graduated from North Texas State Teachers College with BA degree in 1940. At the North Texas State Teachers College he was a member of the Beta Alpha Rho fraternity. A young men"'s Christian association

Kenneth E. Reddy was not married when he died and he had no children. I seems he had a girlfriend at the time he died but I was not able to find more information about this fact.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and other American targets, American officials devised a plan to bring the war to Japan. On April 18, 1942, a flight of sixteen B-25 bombers led by Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle launched from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet to bomb targets on Honshu Island, hitting Tokyo, Yokosuka, Yokohama, Kobe, and Nagoya . . Fifteen of the planes flew on and crashed in China, while another landed in Vladivostok in the Soviet Union, where the crew was trapped for more than a year. The survivors in China eventually returned to the United States, where they were hailed as heroes. Lieutenant Kenneth E. Reddy was one of these heroes.

On 2 September 1942, a bomber took off on a training flight after a luncheon in Shreveport, Louisiana, honoring nine men stationed at nearby Barksdale Field who had participated in the bombing of Honshu. Among those honored was First Lieutenant Kenneth E. Reddy, age twenty-two, of Bowie, Texas, who was also the pilot on the training flight.

Something went wrong during the flight, and on the night of 2 September 1942, workers at the Maumelle Ordnance Works were startled by the sight of a bomber approaching the factory, over which flying was restricted. The wayward plane turned toward the Arkansas River , and factory workers reported seeing the plane drop flares in an apparent attempt to find a spot for an emergency landing.

At around 11:30 p.m., a witness recalled being awakened by the roar of aircraft engines that stopped abruptly, followed shortly afterwards by a powerful explosion. The B-26A bomber had climbed about 100 yards from the tops of trees before crashing into a narrow strip of forest in the bottom of Little Maumelle Creek, leaving a trail of wreckage more than 100 yards long and 50 yards wide. The doomed plane was consumed by flames and there were no survivors.

Kenneth E. Reddy, second from right, in China after bombing Japan and bailing with his crew above China.

In addition to Reddy, the victims included Second Lieutenant Charles SS Brachbill, 21, of Williamsport, Pennsylvania; Second Lieutenant Phillip Williams Jr., 24, of Hinsdale, Illinois; Sergeant Thomas T. Roberts, 22, of Knoxville, Tennessee; Corporal Dominic Moduno, 20, of Brooklyn, New York; and Private Thomas A. Naylon, 33, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Investigators from Barksdale Field arrived at the crash site the next day, including Major Charles R. Greening, with whom Reddy had flown as a copilot during the Doolittle Raid. There were apparently no published results of that study.

Article taken from Encyclopedia of Arkansas : https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net

Kenneth E. Reddy was inducted in the Texas Aviation Hall of Fame on 9 November 2001.

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