Retired naval aviation officer Herbert Elgan Montgomery died March 16 in La Mesa, CA. He was 91. Known by Bud, the nickname his mother gave him as a boy, he was born October 29, 1926 in McCook, NE, to Willie Elgan and Lillian Irene (Bullock) Montgomery. The family moved to Denver where he attended, among other schools, West High. With the addition of sister Bonnie, the Montgomerys relocated to Alameda, CA. There he graduated from high school in 1944 and enlisted in the Navy.
Embarking on a 30-year Navy career, he reported for duty at Virginia’s Norfolk Naval Base. There, in 1945, he met and married the WAVE and Storekeeper Marjorie Lois Standring of Pawtucket, RI. In 1946 she bore their only child, Dennis Elgan.
Bud Montgomery became an aviation metalsmith and joined the crew of the U.S.S. Sicily, an auxiliary aircraft carrier, before assignment to seaplanes in Patrol Squadron Forty at San Diego. Detailed to the Korean Conflict, the squadron lost to MIG attacks two of the PBMs on which he flew. Among his decorations were the Air Medal with four gold stars and a Combat Action Ribbon.
In 1952, he joined VR-8, a Naval Air Transport Service squadron of Super Constellations at Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu, serving on maintenance and flight crews and advancing to the rate of first class. Passing examinations for chief and limited duty officer, he accepted a commission as an ensign in 1956, and after Officers Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island, joined the Military Air Transport Service squadron VR-22 in Norfolk as a maintenance officer. The Navy assigned him to maintenance billets at Naval Air Station Memphis at Millington, Tennessee in 1962; N.A.S. Midway Island in 1965; Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron One (VQ-1) at N.A.S. Atsugi, Japan, in 1967; and a P3 Orion squadron at N.A.S. Barber’s Point in 1970. Retiring to La Mesa in 1974 as a lieutenant commander, he joined a civilian aircraft maintenance organization at N.A.S. San Diego, traveling the Pacific in support of naval air operations. In addition to Korea, he served in the Berlin Airlift, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Vietnam.
In uniform, he earned a bachelor’s degree from Southern Illinois University, and afterwards, master’s and doctor’s degrees from San Diego State.
He was widowed in 2000. He was grandfather to Charity Montgomery of Rocky Mount, NC; Harmony Hunter, who lives with her husband Craig in Toano, VA; Honor McDonald of Richmond, VA; Carla Pillsbury, who lives with her husband Ed in Richmond; and Grace Montgomery of Portsmouth, VA. He was great grandfather to Annalise Martin of Clarksville, TN; Andrew Pillsbury, and Catherine and Jameson McDonald of Richmond; and Elsie Hunter of Toano.
His funeral begins with visitation at 1 p.m., followed by services at 2 p.m., Thursday, March 22, at Erickson-Anderson Mortuary, 8390 Allison Avenue, La Mesa. Internment, at Ft. Rosecrans, is private.
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