Air Force Lieutenant Colonel William Dyess

Lieutenant Colonel William Edwin Dyess, 27, of Albany, Texas, commanded the 21st Pursuit Squadron in the Philippines during World War II. After American forces surrendered on Bataan in the Philippines, he survived the Bataan Death March, (one of the most infamous Japanese war crimes of World War II) and several prison camps. After escaping in April 1943, he helped provide the U.S. government with one of the first detailed eyewitness accounts of the Japanese atrocities. He died on December 22, 1943, near Burbank, California, when his P-38 Lightning caught fire during a training flight. Rather than abandon the aircraft over a populated neighborhood, he remained aboard and directed it into a vacant lot.

LtCol Dyess graduated from Albany High School and John Tarleton Agricultural College in 1936 before completing flight training for the Air Force. Sent to the Philippines shortly before Pearl Harbor, he flew P-40 fighters against Japanese forces, attacked enemy shipping and later organized his grounded airmen as infantry.

Members of Dyess (formerly Abilene) Air Force Base remembered him as a courageous leader and “a true hero.”

LtCol Dyess was survived by his wife and parents.