• Sept. 22, 1924 – March 6, 1944
• Born in Knoxville, Tennessee
• Graduate of Knoxville High School
• Engineering 1942
  • First Year of College
• 2nd Lt., Army Air Corps
• B-24 Navigator. 735th Bomb Sq, 453rd Bomb Group. Aircraft ditched in the North Sea on the return flight from Germany, badly damaged. Reported KIA. (same crew as Robert McCook)
  • Same Mission that Ray Gilbreath was killed (733rd Bomb Squadron)
  • 8th Air Force
• Buried at Lynnhurst Cemetery in Knoxville, Tennessee

Joseph Grayson Halliburton III (Sept. 22, 1924 – March 6, 1944) was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. He was a graduate of Knoxville High School and was attending his first year as an engineering student at the University of Tennessee when he enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps in 1942. He was trained as a navigation specialist on board B-24 bombers and commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant before being deployed to the European Theater in 1943. 2nd Lt. Halliburton III was assigned to the 735th Bomb Squadron of the 8th Air Force’s 453rd Bomber Group. On March 6, 1944, the 453rd flew a daytime bombing mission on Genshagen, Germany, near Berlin. The group was confronted by heavy enemy aircraft, and 2nd Lt. Halliburton’s plane was hit on its return. He was killed when the crew was forced to ditch the plane over the North Sea. Another University of Tennessee student, 2nd Lt. Robert McCook, was in the same crew as Halliburton and was also killed when the plane went down. Additionally, 2nd Lt. Ray Gilbreath, also a University of Tennessee student in 453rd’s 733rd Bomb Squadron, was shot down on the German-Dutch border during the same bombing mission. He is buried at Lynnhurst Cemetery in Knoxville, Tennessee.

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