William P. Munger ’42

Bill died March 18, 2026, in Falmouth, Maine. He was 106. 

He was born Jan. 17, 1920, in Fanwood, N.J., graduated from the Hotchkiss School in 1938, and majored in aeronautical engineering at Princeton. He got his first lab bench while at Hotchkiss. The school discovered he had built an illicit radio, so they started an electronics club for him and his friends.  

After Princeton, Bill worked at Wright Aeronautical, analyzing problems in military aircraft that were discovered by combat pilots, ground crews, and wreckage reviews. Bill married Jane Marshall in 1946. They lived in Morristown, N.J., and raised four children: Grace, Dorothy, Ray Thomas, and Burke. Bill became chief project engineer at Reaction Motors, in Mahwah, in charge of rocket pump development, and later worked with Abex Corp. on bar code train tracking.  

After retirement and the death of his wife, Bill married Patricia Locke in 1990. They lived on Rackliff Island, in Spruce Head, Maine, and kept Bill’s 31-foot Cape Dory Kestrel on a mooring in front of their house. Bill was an accomplished woodworker, crafting furniture and a 15-foot cedar strip dory in his basement. A skilled sailor, Bill cruised the Eastern seaboard from the Canadian Maritimes to Grenada, the Hebrides Islands of Scotland, and the western Norwegian coastline. Bill and Patsy, his wife of 35 years, loved to sit on their front deck to watch boats pass by in the Muscle Ridge Channel, listen to the foghorn on Whitehead Island, and enjoy the changing tides in Seal Harbor.  

Bill is survived by Patsy, his four children, eight grandchildren, nine great grandchildren, and three stepchildren.