ALFRED E. CREIGH, III, PFC, USA
Alfred Creigh, III '46
Alfred Edgar Creigh, III was admitted to the Naval Academy from Texas on July 16, 1942 at age 18 years 8 months. The 1944 Naval Academy Register lists him as resigning on April 12, 1943 with this note: "Deficient in studies. Recommended to be dropped. Permitted to resign."
Lucky Bag
Alfred Edgar Creigh is listed among those "gone but not forgotten" in the Class of 1946 Lucky Bag.
Midshipman 4/c Creigh in the 1944 Lucky Bag.
Loss
Alfred was killed in action with German forces on December 22, 1944 at the Battle of the Bulge. He was a member of the 307th Engineer Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division.
Other Information
From Find A Grave:
PFC, 307 ENGR BN, 82 ABN DIV WORLD WAR II
Home: Terrell Co, TX.
Service ID: 38440810
He was a member of D Company, 307th Airborne Engineer Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division.
Find A Grave shows his date of death as 12/12/1944, but three other sites have 12/22/1944. Given that the 82nd Airborne Division was off the line on December 12 but was engaged in the Battle of the Bulge on December 22, seems more likely that the later date is correct and the Find A Grave date is incorrectly transcribed.
He was born in Boulder, Colorado.
Alfred was originally reported as missing, but presumed to be a prisoner of the Germans. He was "reared in Sanderson" Texas; his father was a "prominent West Texas attorney" who had recently moved into the Alpine, Texas area with Alfred's mother.
There is an (exceptionally confusing) account of his loss in the June 3, 1949 issue of Alpine Avalanche newspaper, on the occasion of his reburial. It seems it involved the demolition of a bridge in Belgium.
He was a 1941 graduate of the New Mexico Military Institute. He is buried in West Virginia.
Memorial Hall Error
All three sites above, the 1944 Naval Academy Register, and the killed in action panel have "III" suffix, but this is omitted from his name on the Class of 1944 panel.
Alfred is one of 36 members of the Class of 1946 on Virtual Memorial Hall.
The "category" links below lead to lists of related Honorees; use them to explore further the service and sacrifice of alumni in Memorial Hall.
