Jeremiah J. Reinburg

	NAME Jeremiah Joseph Reinburg	NICKNAME Jerry	SERVICE NUMBER O-13411
	UNIT VMF-214 Pilot	HOME OF RECORD 218 North Wilton Street, Philadelphia, PA	NEXT OF KIN Mother, Mrs. Elizabeth A. Reinburg
	DATE OF BIRTH February 8, 1919	ENTERED SERVICE August 8, 1941	DATE OF LOSS January 12, 1943
	REGION Hawaiian Islands	CAMPAIGN / AREA Oahu, Barber’s Point	CASUALTY TYPE Non-Battle Death
CIRCUMSTANCES OF LOSS On 12 January 1943, during a training exercise in Hawaii, Second Lieutenant Reinburg’s aircraft collided with one flown by his squadronmate, Second Lieutenant John R. Fidler. Both pilots jumped from their stricken aircraft. Reinburg’s parachute harness failed to hold, and he fell to his death. His remains were not recovered.
INDIVIDUAL DECORATIONS —	LAST KNOWN RANK Second Lieutenant	STATUS OF REMAINS Not recovered.	MEMORIALS National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific

Biography:
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After completing routine firing runs about five miles out to sea, the pilots began joining up on [George] Britt’s wing for the return trip to Ewa…. With three planes now in formation, Britt looked over his left shoulder just as something went terribly wrong.

Lieutenant Jeremiah J. Reinburg had misjudged his high rate of closure and swooped in too fast beside Fidler, who was stunned to see a whirling propeller in front of his left wing. An instant later came a jarring collision as Reinburg’s plane slammed into Fidler’s. Airfram parts flew in all directions. From his position up forward, Britt was relieved to see two parachutes blossom as both pilots jumped from their stricken fighters….

‘After no more than thirty seconds I noticed that something odd was going on. The chute I was circling was not descending at anywhere near the rate the other was. I circled in for a closer look and saw, to my horror, that the chute harness was empty.’

Britt’s interview with the enlisted plane captain who assisted Reinburg into his aircraft revealed Reinburg had a habit of taxiing away from the flight line without securing the leg straps of his parachute harness. The straps crossed below the crotch and were uncomfortable, but they absorbed much of a parachute’s opening shock. Reinburg had bailed out after the collision, but the unsecured harness was torn from his body when the chute opened. As with most fatal accidents, the pilot’s mistakes caused his own demise. It was a harsh lesson for the others, who then began to cinch their own straps a little tighter.

– Bruce Gamble, The Black Sheep, pp. 31-33.