Thomas J. Mcgory

HOMAS J. McGORY, age 92, of 5 Maplewood Point, Ithaca, NY, passed away Tuesday, June 26th, 2007 at his residence. Tom was born April 23, 1915, at Cortland, NY, a son of the late Thomas and Mary O’Connell McGory. His family moved to a farm near Dryden in 1918. Tom was graduated from Dryden High School in 1932, where he was accomplished as a soccer, basketball, and baseball player. He worked at Smith Corona in Groton prior to being the Sales Manager at the former Baker Lumber Co. in Dryden. Tom served for 7 years as Chief of the Dryden Fire Dept., with three of the years before entering the Army Air Forces in 1942. Tom’s distinguished military career began as a Certified Flight Engineer in the B-24 Liberator bomber at Willow Point, Ypsilanti, MI. He was stationed overseas in England with the Eighth Air Force, 489th Bomb Group, as a Top Turret Gunner and Flight Engineer. His B-24 was shot down by anti-aircraft fire over Hamburg on its 25th mission, resulting in Tom being a POW for nine months. Eventually he and 2000 of the original 10,000 prisoners in his group from Stalag Luft IV were liberated by British Forces on May 2, 1945 after a 83 day, 600 mile march across Germany. From this march the remaining 8000 comrades were casualties. Tom was honored with the Air Medal, three Oak Leaf Clusters, the POW Medal. On July 5, 2003, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. After the war, Tom returned to Dryden and served four more years as Fire Chief. He then began employment in 1949 at Cornell University as an Assistant Athletic Trainer, later becoming a Certified Athletic Trainer. He was appointed Head Athletic Trainer in 1967. He served as the Assistant Baseball Coach from 1965 to 1983. He was involved with Kiwanis Baseball from 1952 to 1961 and finally retired from Cornell Athletics in 1983.