The young F-15 pilot who was lost when his plane crashed in the North Sea near England Monday was remembered by his family, friends and the Air Force as a loving, kind and faithful husband.
1st Lt. Kenneth “Kage” Allen’s wife, Hannah, who he had wed on Feb. 20, mourned her husband in a series of posts on Facebook Monday and Tuesday.
“I feel beyond blessed to have loved him in this life and can’t wait to love him for eternity,” Hannah wrote on Monday, shortly after she learned he had died after his F-15C crashed in the ocean, following with the hashtag #youaremyforever.
In a longer post Tuesday, Hannah said “I think I could fill an ocean with the tears I’ve cried today.”
“I never knew a heart could shatter like this,” she wrote. “But I’ve promised you today that the rest of my life will be a tribute to you.”
RELATED
Hannah remembered the way her husband practiced his faith as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and tried to live up to its values.
The Allens had hoped to have a religious sealing ceremony in May, Hannah wrote in an April post, but the coronavirus pandemic complicated those plans. But her excitement at being a newlywed was clear to all in her post.
And their engagement photos, she joked, all of a sudden became wedding photos.
Casey Lundquist, a publisher at Sports Illustrated’s website for Brigham Young University sports, said on Twitter that he and Allen served together as missionaries in Chile for a period.
“He was truly one of the greatest leaders I’ve ever met," Lundquist said. "He dreamed of protecting our country as an Air Force pilot.”
Allen graduated from Box Elder High School in Brigham City, Utah, the Standard-Examiner newspaper in Ogden, Utah, reported.
Allen was commissioned in the Air Force after graduating from the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in May 2017. The academy said on Tuesday the Air Force community was grieving the “great loss” of Allen.
He arrived at the 48th Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath in February, and was the assistant chief of weapons and tactics for the 493rd Fighter Squadron there.
Hannah Allen also shared a recent video of her late husband singing Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle” in a clear, strong voice and skillfully fingerpicking his acoustic guitar.
When she originally posted the video June 7, Hannah wrote “now you can see … why when he played for me the first time I was pretty smitten.”
On Tuesday, when she re-shared the video, Hannah wrote “The last song he sang for me,” followed by three heart emojis and “oh Kage.”
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.
