James Gray Price was born on September 26, 1914, in Bastrop, Texas, where his family lived. He grew up during a period of rapid change in the United States, completing four years of high school before entering the U.S. Navy in the mid-1930s. He then joined the workforce as a lineman and serviceman in the telegraph & telephone industry. Like many young men of his generation, the outbreak of World War II altered the course of his life. On April 8, 1942, while residing in Ranger, Texas, he enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces at Dallas, Texas, entering service as a private under the Army Serial Number 18083179. He was single at the time of his enlistment and joined the Air Corps as part of the wartime expansion of the U.S. air arm.

Following his enlistment, Price entered the Aviation Cadet program, beginning the rigorous sequence of training that transformed civilians into military pilots. Although the specific bases he trained at are not individually documented in surviving public records, his path would have followed the standard Air Corps progression of the period. He would have first reported to a classification center, then advanced through primary flight training in the PT‑17 Stearman, basic flight training in the BT‑13 Valiant, and finally advanced flight training in multi‑engine aircraft such as the AT‑9, AT‑10, or AT‑17. Upon successful completion of this demanding program, he earned his pilot’s wings and was commissioned as a second lieutenant, receiving the officer service number O‑745172. He then proceeded to multi‑engine transition training, preparing specifically for the B‑24 Liberator heavy bomber.

By late 1943, Lieutenant Price was assigned to the 451st Bomb Group (Heavy), part of the Fifteenth Air Force operating from Castelluccio Airfield in Italy. He served in the 725th Bomb Squadron as a B‑24 pilot during a period when the Fifteenth Air Force was engaged in some of the most dangerous and strategically important missions of the air war in Europe. Between late 1943 and the spring of 1944, he flew twenty combat missions against heavily defended targets across Axis‑controlled Europe. These missions included strikes on industrial centers, rail yards, airfields, and oil facilities in cities such as Vienna, Budapest, Steyr, Regensburg, and the infamous Ploesti oil complex, one of the most critical fuel sources for the German war machine.

He was promoted to First Lieutenant on April 12, 1944 and five days later on April 17th 1Lt Price took off on what would be his twenty‑first combat mission. The target that day was Belgrade Zemun A/D, Yugoslavia, a site protected by intense anti‑aircraft fire and aggressive fighter defenses. Flying B‑24 Liberator serial number 41‑29220, Price and his crew encountered the full force of these defenses. The aircraft was lost near Mostar, in what was then Yugoslavia, during the return from the target. Seven aboard were killed in action and three were captured. The loss was documented in Missing Air Crew Report 4078, which records the circumstances of the aircraft’s disappearance and the fate of its crew.

After the war, recovery efforts located the remains of Price and his fellow crew members. Four were interred together in a group burial at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis County, Missouri, where they rest in Section 79, Sites 254–256. Lieutenant James Gray Price was twenty‑nine years old at the time of his death, having given his life in one of the most dangerous air campaigns of the Second World War.