William E Peters Jr
MilitaryShot down 17 July 1943 in B-17 #4229872 'Snow Ball'. Plane ditched in North Sea. He spent several hours waiting for rescue. He was an award-winning journalist and film director after the war. He wrote one of the first stories about Martin Luther King Jr to be published in a national newspaper back in August 1956 as the Montgomery bus boycott started the previous December continued to hold.
One of his PBS documentaries - 'A Class Divided' - is available to view online: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/
Connections
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Units served with
- Unit Hierarchy: Group
- Air Force: Eighth Air Force
- Type Category: Bombardment
- Unit Hierarchy: Squadron
- Air Force: Eighth Air Force
- Type Category: Bombardment
Aircraft
- Aircraft Type: B-17 Flying Fortress
- Unit: 351st Bomb Group 511th Bomb Squadron
Places
- Site type: Airfield
Events
| Event | Location | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Born |
San Francisco, California | 30 July 1921 | |
|
Enlisted |
Chicago, IL, USA | 27 January 1942 | |
|
Other Shot down over the North Sea |
North Sea | 17 July 1943 | |
|
Died |
Lafayette, CO, USA | 20 May 2007 | |
| Lake County, IL, USA |
Revisions
NARA enlistment record: https://aad.archives.gov/aad/record-detail.jsp?dt=893&mtch=17&cat=all&t… desc&rpp=20&pg=1&rid=1239018&rlst=6185402,1239018,733208,5864855,8443520,8172278,6686908
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=19564539&PIpi=624…
Drawn from the records of the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force, Savannah, Georgia / Roll of Honor, Losses of the 8th & 9th AFs Vol. 1 by Bishop & Hey p. 184-5