1st Lt. Irving Woodrow DeGon was killed on January 20, 1944, Chabua, India, in a plane crash while piloting a C-46 (#741) during a take off from an airfield, along with crew members named Smith, Shea, and Gray. He was starting his 8th month as a transport pilot in the India-China Wing Army Transportation Corps (ICWATC), and had made 30 flights over "The Hump" to China, as well as various other flights locally in India. He was 28 years old.
Irving was born May 15, 1916, in Malone, New York, on May 15, 1916, to Leslie Arthur DeGon and Marie Roxie Labarge. As a young man, Irving was active in YMCA work, and he was an avid swimmer, with his own high-dive act. Before the war he drove for the Good Humor ice cream company for seven years in Greenwich and New Haven, Connecticut.
Irving registered for the draft on October 16, 1940, and enlisted on May 31, 1941, from Hartford, Connecticut, and was single at that time. He was appointed aviation cadet in May, 1941, and received his primary school flight training at Parks Air College, Illinois, and his basic flying at Georgia Aero Tech, Augusta, Georgia. He did advanced training at Barksdale Field, Louisiana, and received his silver wings and commission as 2nd lieutenant in the U. S. Army Air Corps in January, 1943. Then he spent time at Randolph Field, Texas, around March, 1943, training with the 43rd Fighter Squadron class 43C. He was sent overseas in June of 1943, serving first in Africa, before serving in India. After a period of instruction during C-46 flights around India, he made his first round trip as a C-46 pilot over The Hump--between Chabua and Kunming--on August 15-16, 1943. The trip on which he died during take-off would have been his 31st over The Hump.
In 1943, Irving and his childhood sweetheart, Virginia Antonette Terstegen, married in San Antonio, Texas. While Irving was called to duty during WWII, she settled in with her parents on their farm in Maine, as she awaited the birth of their son, Gary. Lt. DeGon never got a chance to meet his son. The loss of Irving was painful in their home in subsequent years, and mention of painful memories of him became almost taboo.
There is a marker for Lt. DeGon at National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, buried January 26, 1949.
Lt. DeGon's brothers Vincent Maurice DeGon and Leland DeGon also served in WWII.
