Jeremiah Joseph O'Keefe III

Highest Rank Held, Branch of Service: 1st Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps

Veteran of: U.S. Navy 1942-1943; U.S. Marine Corps 1943-1945; World War II 1942-1945

Jeremiah J. 'Jerry' O'Keefe, III was born on July 12, 1923, in Ocean Springs, MS. He joined the Aviation Cadet Program of the U.S. Navy in June 1942 and was commissioned a 2d Lt in the U.S. Marine Corps and designated a Naval Aviator on June 16, 1943. Lt. O'Keefe joined VMF-323, the Death Rattlers, in August 1943 at MCAS Cherry Point, NC, and moved with the squadron to NAAS El Centro, CA, in January 1944, and then to Hawaii in July 1944. He next deployed with the squadron to the Southwest Pacific in September 1944, and to Okinawa during the Battle of Okinawa in April 1945. Lt. O'Keefe became an Ace in during his first engagement, when he shot down 5 enemy aircraft in aerial combat over Okinawa on April 22, 1945, adding 2 more air victories on April 28, for a total of 7. He returned to the U.S. in June 1945 and left active duty at the end of the war in September 1945. After leaving duty, Jerry graduated from Loyola University with a bachelor's degree in Business Administration in 1948, and later bought his father's funeral home business in 1953, which became Bradford-O'Keefe Funeral Home in Biloxi, Mississippi. Jerry served as a Mississippi State Legislator from 1960 to 1964 and was Mayor of Biloxi from 1973 to 1981. He and his wife Annette Saxon O?€™Keefe had 13 children together and lived in Biloxi until her death in May, 1998. Jerry married Martha Peterson in July, 1999. He passed away in August, 2016.

O'Keefe was awarded the U.S. Navy Cross, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal, and the Gold Star and, in 2015, he received the Congressional Gold Medal as one of the then-surviving American Fighter Aces of WWII.

His Navy Cross Citation reads:

For extraordinary heroism and distinguished service in the line of his profession as Section Leader and a Pilot in Marine Fighting Squadron THREE HUNDRED TWENTY-THREE, Marine Air Group THIRTY-THREE, FOURTH Marine Aircraft Wing, in aerial combat against enemy Japanese forces during the assault on Okinawa Shima, Ryukyu Islands, on 22 April 1945. Fighting his plane aggressively in two engagements against a total of more than fifty Japanese suicide dive bombers, First Lieutenant O?€™Keefe pressed home a series of bold attacks in the face of hostile fire to destroy five of the enemy aircraft. By his resolute courage, skillful airmanship, and devotion to duty, he aided materially in preventing the numerically superior force from reaching its objective, and his gallant conduct throughout reflects the highest credit upon First Lieutenant O?€™Keefe and the United States Naval Service.