"William enlisted in January, 1942 and received his commission as a pilot on June 26th, 1943. He was assigned to the 597th Bomb Squadron of the 397th Bomb Group. The B26 pilots were repeatedly assigned the task of bombing bridges and attained such good results with these difficult targets that they began to be referred to as the “Bridge Busters”.



William arrived with the squadron in England and after a short period of training, he flew his first mission (#2 for the squadron) on April 21st, 1944. William would fly a total of 58 missions, his final one coming on November 5th, 1944 against an ordnance depot in Homburg. He earned a total of 13 Air Medals.



On June 6th 1944, William flew two missions in direct support of the DDay invasion. The first in the morning targeted German batteries in Les Dunes De Varreville. The second in the afternoon targeted German batteries in Trouville.



After completing 58 missions, William left combat duty. He was assigned to 2117th AAF Base Unit at Buckingham Army Air Field, Fort Myers, Florida, for a period, and in May 1945 was placed on terminal leave and sent home.



After the war William enjoyed a long career as an airline pilot with United Airlines, and upon retirement moved to Siloam Springs, Arkansas, where he lived until he passed away in 1997."