Dyess, William E., Lieutenant Colonel
U.S. Army Air Forces, World War II
Albany, Texas
Namesake of Dyess Air Force Base
Candidate, 2015 Texas Legislative Medal of Honor
84th Legislative Session
He was a highly decorated fighter pilot. Infantry commander. Marine. Prisoner-of-war. Guerrilla. Patriot.
The tale of his adventures and achievements was trumpeted as “The Greatest Story of the War in the Pacific.”
The media nicknamed him “The One-Man Scourge of the Japanese.”
Millions of Americans called him a hero.
His family called him Edwin.
For decades, his men referred to him simply, but reverently, as Ed.
His name was Dyess.
He was a Texan.
BORN on 9 August 1916 in Albany, Shackelford County, to Richard and Hallie Graham Dyess, William Edwin
Dyess was a celebrated athlete, talented actor and a natural-born leader. At Albany High School, Dyess served
as captain of the Lions’ track and football teams and as student body president. At John Tarleton Agricultural
College (now Tarleton State University) in Stephenville, he was class president, head of the campus theater
troupe and commander of the R.O.T.C. detachment. In what little spare time he had, Dyess – who had become
captivated with aviation ever since his first flight as a four-year-old in 1920 and was in attendance when
American aviation legend Charles Lindbergh paid a visit to Abilene in 1927 – worked several jobs to pay for
secret flying lessons from the daring pilots who “barnstormed” Texas between the world wars.
Dyess graduated from Tarleton in 1936 and seemed
destined for a career in the courtroom, not the
cockpit: he spent that summer working on the
Humble Oil pipeline to save enough money to attend
the University of Texas Law School in the fall term.
But fate, as it would so many times in Dyess’s brief,
but extraordinary life, intervened. While
hitchhiking to Austin to enroll, Dyess thumbed a
ride with a young man who was a washout from the
U.S. Army Air Force’s flight cadet training program
in San Antonio. Mesmerized by the stories of pilot
training and military life, Dyess made a figurative Uturn.
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Dyess flourished in the classroom and in the
air, where he frequently exhibited his innate
talent for flying by barrel-rolling in tight
formations, banking between tall trees and
occasionally “buzzing” his hometown; old
timers there still vividly recall seeing Dyess
roar down Main Street in Albany, his plane’s
wings seemingly gliding atop the power lines.
A distinguished graduate of the advanced
flight schools at Randolph and Kelly Fields in
San Antonio, aka. “The West Point of the Air,”
the swashbuckling pilot with recruiting poster
good looks received a quick promotion to first
lieutenant and an appointment as
commanding officer of the 21st Pursuit
Squadron, making him one of the youngest
squadron commanders in the service. It also made him the tip of the proverbial spear; he deployed with the 21st
Pursuit to the Philippine Islands in November 1941, a fateful assignment that would ultimately provide him the
opportunity to become one of the first Americans to engage the enemy in World War II.
Lt. Dyess’s leadership skills and flying prowess was put on display immediately upon Japan’s attack on the
Philippines on 8 December 1941. He destroyed one large, motorized convoy and shot down six enemy planes
during the early phase of the Pacific war from late 1941 through early 1942; Dyess would have been classified an
“ace” if not for the lack of gun cameras on early war model fighters and the loss of official records, which were
destroyed to prevent them from falling into enemy hands upon the surrender of Bataan.
Throughout the unfolding campaign, the instantly besieged American and Filipino troops received reassurances
from Washington, D.C. that “help is on the way.” But it was a lie: America’s manpower, munitions and
industrial might was earmarked for Europe and the fight against Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Decades of
Depression-era fiscal policy that gutted the budgets of America’s armed forces, poor pre-war preparations in the
Philippines and the Pacific War’s secondary status in the eyes of Washington war planners would fatefully doom
Dyess to participate in a fight America was destined to lose, a 20th Century Texan in a battle historians would
later call the “Alamo of the Pacific.”
Attrition due to combat losses, accidents and the Japanese naval blockade created an emergency shortage of
aircraft, taking Dyess out of his cockpit and out of his element. Provided obsolete equipment and World War Iera weapons that “looked as though they might have been picked up at an ordnance rummage sale” Dyess was
inducted into the infantry. He rallied his men with his charismatic personality and folksy sense of humor:
“I’d rather be back home in Texas, staring at the southbound end of a north-bound mule.” – Lt. Ed Dyess, Bataan, 1942
A grounded Dyess soon rose to the occasion, demonstrating exceptional skill as a marksman and as a motivator
as well as knowledge of small-unit tactics while leading his squadron of ill-equipped and inexperienced airmen
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in infantry combat in the jungles of the Bataan Peninsula during what came to be called the “Battle of the
Points” in late January 1942.
Dyess had proven to be such a gifted ground warrior that he volunteered to lead what would be America’s first
amphibious landing of World War II, at Agloloma Bay on 8 February 1942 to root out the entrenched remnants
of two battalions (approx. strength, 2,000) of enemy troops that had landed on Western Bataan two weeks
earlier with orders from Japanese 14th Army commander General Masaharu Homma to wreak havoc behind the
Fil-American lines, facilitate the collapse of the rear echelon and force a quick end to the campaign.
After surviving strafing attacks on the makeshift, motorless craft transporting the 20-man landing party (all
members of the 21st Pursuit Squadron hand-picked by Dyess), Dyess was the first man ashore, selflessly
exposing himself to enemy fire while engaging enemy positions with a Lewis machine gun, the scalding hot
barrel of which he gripped with an asbestos glove. Lt. Col. John D. Cowgill, USAF (Ret.) then a young 21 st
Pursuit enlisted man and now, at age 94 the last surviving veteran of the “Battle of Agloloma Bay,” recalled in
an interview at his home in Seattle in May 2014 that he and his comrades were frozen with fear. “All of us
stalled. Dyess had already got off and was up on the beach. He said, 'C'mon, you guys, c'mon! We gotta go!' He
said, 'Damn it! Aren't we men? Can't we do it now?' And my God, we moved. We followed Dyess. He was on the
beach already, ready to go. My God, what a leader.”
“Never once did I see or detect fear in the man. He
was truly an inspiration to all those around him."
– Ray C. Hunt, 21st Pursuit Squadron, in letter to base commander, Dyess AFB, 1965
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According to Cowgill, Dyess led by example at all times and displayed a remarkable fearlessness under fire, but
his greatest attribute as an officer and as a combat leader was his unique, uncanny ability to motivate men and
mold them in his own image, transmitting to them his knowledge of firearms and innovative infantry combat
tactics and helping them tap into their own latent leadership skills - in effect multiplying the force of his
personality and presence and manufacturing from scratch an entire unit of elite combatants, Ed Dyess clones, in
a dangerous, depressing situation where reinforcements were otherwise unavailable.
“Dyess was a hero, but he was more than that:
he MADE heroes." – John Cowgill, 21st Pursuit Squadron, 2014
As 100-lb. fragmentation bombs dropped by nine enemy dive-bombers droning overheard spattered the sands
with deadly shrapnel, Dyess and his party moved rapidly, employing automatic weapons and hand grenades to
secure the beachhead and then advance inland to engage and eliminate approximately 75 heavily-armed, elite
Imperial Japanese Special Landing Force troops who had refused to surrender and fortified themselves in caves
and rock formations. This successful action resulted in the failure of Homma’s well-designed flanking
operation. Instead, the beleaguered forces on Bataan and the fortress island of Corregidor in Manila Bay would
hold out for two and three additional months, respectively, anchoring precious enemy resources in the
Philippines and preventing Japan from conquering other territories and consolidating its gains, thus providing
America vital time to mobilize in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. For his intrepidity and individual heroism in
leading the amphibious assault and securing victory in the “Battle of Agloloma Bay,” Dyess received the
Distinguished Service Cross, our nation’s second highest medal for valor.
But Dyess, rewarded with a return to flight duty, had only just begun to fight. He
collected a handful of battle-battered warplanes cobbled together with spare parts and
led nine pilots in an audacious air raid on the Japanese supply depot at Subic Bay,
Luzon on 2 March 1942. Flying “Kibosh,” a Curtiss P-40 Warhawk he and his
armorers had rigged to carry 500-lb. general purpose bombs (against the plane’s
original design specifications and at great risk to his own safety) as a dive-bomber,
Dyess braved heavy anti-aircraft fire on three sorties; He boldly engaged an enemy
cruiser and his score ultimately included one 12,000-ton transport destroyed, one
6000-ton vessel burned, at least two 100-ton motor launches and a handful of barges and lighters sunk; The
cumulative enemy losses were so severe that Radio Tokyo, in order to “save face,” reported that 54 American
four-engine bombers and swarms of fighter planes had been responsible for the attack. Captain Dyess was
again presented with the Distinguished Service Cross for his role in conceiving, planning and leading the
mission, as well as for his incredible individual acts of aerial heroism.
Following the famed “Raid on Subic Bay,” Dyess undertook a conscious effort to remain conspicuously in
command in order to buoy the morale of his men. As the military situation deteriorated, it infuriated Dyess to
watch unscrupulous officers pull rank to secure additional rations or shirk their duties. When a controversial
order was issued by USAFFE (United States Armed Forces, Far East) Command to increase only the pilots’
rations in order to build their strength for missions, Dyess was the only officer to first consult with his enlisted
men to in effect receive their permission to accept the extra food.
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Nor was Dyess one to make others do the “dirty work” of fighting a war. He helped crewmen clean the planes’
cockpits of human fecal matter deposited by dysentery-ridden pilots and repeatedly pushed himself to the point
of exhaustion by flying countless reconnaissance, resupply and VIP evacuation missions to small, secret
American airfields in the distant Visayas and Mindanao in the motley fleet of P-40s, amphibians and training
aircraft known as “The Bamboo Fleet.” Sick and suffering from sleep deprivation, Dyess sometimes flew
unarmed aircraft, dodged numerically-superior enemy patrols and flew round-trips of upwards of 1,400 miles
through these enemy-infested skies in order to bring back desperately-needed quinine and other medicines, as
well as morale-building telegrams from home.
According to the late Lt. General Joe Moore, a contemporary of Dyess’s on Bataan as CO of the 20th Pursuit
Squadron, upon the departure of Interceptor Command’s Brig. General Hal George to Australia with General
Douglas MacArthur in mid-March, the 25-year-old Captain Dyess essentially assumed command of all air
operations on Bataan – despite the presence of other senior USAAF officers, including full colonels with nearly
two decades’ of experience and age on Dyess.
“Dyess was all over...he could have been the person the
army chose to run the whole damn operation. And that's
just about what was going on.” – John Cowgill, 21 Pursuit Squadron, 2014
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Dyess’s devotion to duty was so strong, he refused multiple opportunities to evacuate the doomed Bataan
Peninsula with other pilots in late March and early April 1942. He took his responsibilities to the men under his
command, who he came to consider family, so seriously that he disobeyed several direct orders from superiors
in Australia to leave. In fact, despite having operational priority, Dyess went out of his way to make sure others
were evacuated before him, sending out a fellow pilot and veteran of the Agloloma Bay action, Lt. I.B. “Jack”
Donalson – a native of Kyle, Texas – on the last surviving P-40, his own “Kibosh.” Dyess personally supervised
the last-second repairs and boarding of VIPs on a Grumman amphibian called “The Duck.” Among the men
MacArthur ordered Dyess to get off Bataan before the surrender was Col. Carlos Romulo of the Philippine
Army, a journalist and close friend of MacArthur’s who would win the Pulitzer Prize and would later become
President of the U.N. General Assembly. The final vacant seat on the plane was reserved for Dyess himself, but
at the last second, exhibiting characteristic unselfishness, he ordered one of his best friends, a gifted mechanic
from Wyoming named Lt. Leo Boelens, onto the plane in his stead.
“…I remember hearing the pilots in Mindanao, who had come down by plane
from Bataan, speak of Capt. Dyess. …One evening at dinner at Del Monte,
Mindanao, in the period April 1 to 5, a couple of new arrivals were telling
pilots who had come down a week or so earlier that Dyess had elected to stay
with his men, turning down an opportunity to come to Mindanao. …they
talked about him for several minutes. He seemed to be one of their favorite
fliers and officers. There were remarks about his skill and daring, but
especially about his loyalty to his men…” - Nat Floyd, New York Times, June 27, 1942
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After the inevitable surrender of 75,000 U.S. and
Filipino troops (still the largest surrender in U.S.
military history) on Bataan on 9 April 1942, Dyess
participated in the most horrific war crime in
American history, the infamous Bataan Death
March. During this roughly 70-mile ordeal
characterized by extreme brutality and senseless
atrocities, the Japanese purposefully deprived the
prisoners of food, water and medical care. Dyess,
a 6-ft. tall, blue-eyed officer with light brown hair,
was singled out for special mistreatment by the
Japanese guards – the mostly short-statured,
Xenophobic Japanese delighted in delivering
blows to tall, fair-haired individuals with Occidental features, especially those carrying rank or positions of
authority – and suffered through several savage beatings. Though it made him a bigger target, Dyess
endeavored to shepherd his men forward and help the wounded. “I saw Dyess two or three times on the march
and he was doing his best to keep us all together,” remembered Dallas-native Royal “Dizz” Huston, then a First
Sergeant in the 21st Pursuit, in a 1982 newspaper interview. Dyess struggled to not only preserve his own life
and those of his men, but to make a mental catalogue of the unbelievable litany of horrors he witnessed taking
place around him: the beheadings; the surreal sights of seeing men being horsewhipped, buried alive and run
over by tanks; the use of live prisoners for bayonet practice and other unspeakable atrocities – in order that a
record might be made for the outside world of what was transpiring behind the “Bamboo Curtain” Japan had
drawn across its newly occupied territories.
Dyess’s nightmare was only beginning. For the next six months, he endured starvation, disease, interrogation
and torture in two squalid prison camps – called O’Donnell and Cabanatuan – on the main Philippine island of
Luzon. Although he had been surrendered, Dyess never quit fighting. He worked tirelessly to maintain the
morale of his own men and alleviate the suffering of those around him by exhibiting strong leadership in the
face of extreme adversity and funneling smuggled food and medicine to his squadron mates and fellow
prisoners at the expense of his own health and comfort.
“There’s no way you can say anything but good
about (Dyess). We all would have died for him.”
– Dizz Huston, 21st Pursuit Squadron, Tyler Courier-Times, January 13, 1982
While in captivity, camp discipline broke down as the majority of officers attempted to distance themselves
from their men, shrinking away from the responsibility of leadership. Dyess, on the other hand, embraced the
opportunity. Recognizing that his celebrity as a combatant on Bataan made others look to him for leadership
and solutions, he remained conspicuously in command to present a visible symbol of strength and solidarity to
his downtrodden fellow POWs. Then-Sgt. Cowgill recalled that when he learned that he was earmarked for a
shipment of POWs to mainland Japan, Dyess sought him out. “He grabbed me by the shoulders, looked me in
the eye and said, ‘I know you are going to make it.’ The mere words, the fact that he communicated to me that
he believed in me, believe it or not, I credit with my survival. If Ed Dyess said I could do it, why I had to. I
couldn’t let him down.”
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Whereas his mere physical presence and words were undoubtedly uplifting, the physical examples of Dyess’s
leadership and selfless sacrifices were myriad and at times breathtaking: in O’Donnell, while suffering the
debilitating effects of malnutrition himself, he procured a rare tin of sardines from the black market in order to
provide a dying crewman from the 21st Pursuit a suitable “last supper”; at Cabanatuan, one POW recalled seeing
Dyess, who was noticeably suffering himself from the debilitating effects of scurvy, distributing a sack of limes
to bed-ridden patients at the camp’s infirmary.
Dyess arrived at the Davao Penal Colony, a sprawling, reportedly escape-proof prison plantation on Mindanao,
the southernmost island of the Philippines, in November 1942. It was here at “Dapecol,” a Philippine Alcatraz or
Devil’s Island originally built for the Commonwealth’s most dangerous criminals where the Japanese were using
2,000 U.S. POWs as slave laborers, that Dyess decided that the moment was right for a breakout and employed
his team-building skills to co-organize a team of USAAF personnel with a triumvirate of Marines and a quartet
of Army and Navy men to execute the only large-scale prison break of POWS in the Pacific War. Pledging their
lives to each other, they agreed that self-preservation was not their ultimate goal. Their self-appointed mission?
Break through enemy lines and break the news to the world of the Bataan Death March and Japan’s brutality.
Dyess volunteered for the most difficult mission in the group’s clandestine preparations: the transport of the
escape party’s gear across the camp to an external rally point, which he accomplished by daringly driving the
gear past several guard checkpoints and gates on the camp’s bull cart. If Dyess had been caught, the escape
plan would have been exposed and Dyess and the others would have been summarily executed. Instead, on 4
April 1943, the “Davao Dozen,” ten American POWs and two Filipino convicts, successfully executed their
amazing escape through what was believed to be a vast, impassable swamp filled with chest-high water, tenfoot Philippine crocodiles and swarms of giant insects, a mentally, physically and spiritually draining ordeal.
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“I am here because I followed Colonel Dyess out. To me,
he was the greatest and most heroic soldier in the war.”
– Major Sam Grashio, 21st Pursuit Squadron, Movietone News, 1944
After successfully eluding Japanese search parties, Dyess fought behind enemy lines with Filipino guerrilla
forces before evacuating via submarine in July 1943 to Australia, where he and two other Davao escapees,
Cmdr. Melvyn McCoy and Major Steve Mellnik, briefed the U.S. military on the Death March and horrific
conditions inside Japanese prison camps as well as other vital items of military intelligence value. He was
presented with his third Distinguished Service Cross personally by General MacArthur on 30 July 1943.
Dyess was rushed to the U.S. to meet with high-ranking government officials and military brass (such as
General of the Army Air Forces, Henry “Hap” Arnold) but instead of enjoying a hero’s homecoming, was
immediately muzzled by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the powers-that-were in Washington (who were
fearful that the story of atrocities committed against U.S. military personnel, if widely circulated, would incite
the American people, in turn jeopardizing the Allies’ “Europe First” strategic policy and Pacific POW relief
efforts) and sequestered at a military hospital in the mountains of West Virginia. The self-imposed mission of
Dyess and the Davao escapees was in serious danger of failure.
Despite suffering from devastating bouts of depression and severe (but then-unknown) PTSD, Dyess
summoned the strength to fight his last battle – this time against his own government to publish the first
eyewitness survivor account of the Bataan Death March and other atrocities committed by the Japanese Army.
In the fall of 1943, Dyess entered into a publishing agreement for his phenomenal story with the Chicago
Tribune, the publication with the nation’s largest readership audience, because he felt it was the best way to tell
his fellow Americans about the hell he had gone through and that his friends back in the Philippines were still
going through. Unbeknownst to Dyess, this decision would have major ramifications on future efforts to have
him suitably recognized by the government: the Tribune was owned by Col. Robert McCormick, an outspoken
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critic of the New Deal and Roosevelt Administration policies both foreign and domestic – in essence, FDR’s
political and media arch-enemy.
The epic story of the Davao escape and Japanese atrocities was eventually released by the U.S. Government in
late January 1944, perfectly timed and expertly manipulated in order to harness the full fury of America’s anger
to aid the war effort. The story, trumpeted by the War Department as “The Greatest Story of the War in the
Pacific,” was, as one newspaperman called it, “the biggest bombshell since Pearl Harbor.” One major
metropolitan paper called “The Dyess Story” the “most important news break of the war.”
Dyess and the “Davao Dozen,” through their escape and
the revelations that followed, changed the course of the
war. Strategic military operations were altered in the
Pacific Theater, while on the home front, news of the
Death March and other atrocities awoke America from a
little-known mid-war complacency slumber. The
revelations infuriated Americans, slashed absenteeism in
war industry, skyrocketed stagnant war bond sales and
service enlistment numbers, shamed the Japanese before
the global community, galvanized the American public for
a greater prosecution of the Pacific war and, most
notably, fundamentally altered U.S. Government wartime
censorship policies, returning the Constitutionallyprotected First Amendment right of a free press to the
Fourth Estate. Ed Dyess, however, never lived to see his
name and his story dominate the front page of every
newspaper in the United States and never knew that he
and his heroic comrades had accomplished their mission.
On 22 December 1943, his P-38 Lightning began experiencing engine trouble during a routine flight. Rather
than bail out and let his plane careen into a crowded Los Angeles residential area that was known to house war
workers, Dyess attempted an emergency landing on a Burbank boulevard, but fate intervened one last time: He
pulled up at the last moment to avoid killing a motorist who had unexpectedly and unknowingly strayed into
his landing path. Staying at the controls while attempting to guide his crippled plane into a vacant lot, he
struck a church and was killed when the plane cartwheeled into the ground in a fiery crash. What could have
been a major disaster involving hundreds of casualties instead resulted in the sacrifice of only one life – his own.
Among the thousands of cards, letters and expressions of sympathy delivered to the Dyess home in Albany was
a short, poignant telegram from California containing words that would prove a fitting epitaph for one of
America’s greatest, and most unselfish war heroes:
PLEASE ACCEPT EXPRESSED PROFOUND SYMPATHY OF THE
MAN SPARED FROM DISASTER BY THE FINAL BRAVE DEED
OF YOUR SON STOP GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN TO GIVE
HIS LIFE TO SAVE ANOTHEr STOP – J. Fladwed, telegram to Dyess family, 1943
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Dyess was recommended for the Medal of
Honor, but the recommendation was quashed
by Roosevelt and Washington and Dyess was
instead posthumously awarded the Soldier’s
Medal in recognition of a heroic act not
involving an armed enemy. At the time of his
tragic death, Dyess was only 27.
Though his extraordinary war record brought
widespread international fame, a desire for
celebrity was not consistent with the unselfish
way Lt. Col. Dyess lived his life and fought his
war. At his direction, the story that enthralled
the nation in serial form in the Chicago Tribune
(which later became his posthumously
published memoirs in book form, The Dyess
Story) was specifically written to feature the
service and sacrifices of his countrymen and
Filipino friends and downplay his own
individual heroics. The family of Lt. Col. Dyess
resisted the public’s clamor for his internment at
Arlington National Cemetery and insisted that
he be buried in his beloved home state, in a
simple family plot in the Albany Cemetery. To
this day, the only public recognition, in Texas or
anywhere else, of Lt. Col. Dyess’s valiant actions
during World War II was the renaming of
Abilene Air Force Base to Dyess Air Force Base in
1956. In some sense, today Dyess AFB stands as
a living, working memorial to this true hero’s
Texas pride, love of country, and wartime
sacrifices.
But we owe it to both Dyess and to ourselves to do more. According to one of America’s greatest living
warriors, General James Mattis, USMC (Ret.), the 11th Commander of U.S. Central Command, recognizing and
honoring Dyess is about more than history. According to Mattis, our heritage and our future is at stake: “Col.
Dyess is the sort of man we must recognize as the ultimate guarantor of our freedoms. His bravery and
cunning were the ‘stuff’’ of legends.”
“I want to say that Ed was the grandest, toughest, good natured
hombre that I have ever had the pleasure of knowing or hope to
know. If any one of my three boys grow up to be the man that Ed
was, I would feel that I had done one hell of a fine job.”
– Lt. Commander A.H. Clark, skipper of the submarine U.S.S. Trout, 10 February 1944
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Indeed, Dyess’s legendary succession of valorous acts in World War II has earned for him an honored place in
the pantheon of Texas’s bravest and most esteemed heroes, alongside the likes of Robert Thomas Edlin, M.B.
Etheredge, Audie Murphy, Roy Benavidez, Darryn Andrews and his other brother warriors. Lt. Col. Ed Dyess
repeatedly risked his life in defense of his country, waged an unbelievable one-man war against a relentless,
ruthless enemy for nearly two full years, strove to save the lives of his countrymen on the battlefield, in prison
camp and on the home front, fought to inform the American people of a vital aspect of the war and in the
process preserve their God-given, Constitutionally-protected freedoms, and ultimately made the supreme
sacrifice on behalf of a fellow citizen – he is most assuredly deserving of this state’s supreme military award, the
Texas Legislative Medal of Honor.
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EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY and MEDIA
Visit/click vimeo.com/105792249 to watch an eight-minute video of a 2014 interview with John D. Cowgill, the
last surviving veteran of the Battle of Agloloma Bay, as he discusses his first-hand, eyewitness recollections of
that fateful fight and Lt. Col. Dyess’s special heroism and leadership skills (Passcode: 0-22526)
Visit/click vimeo.com/123143217 to listen to a five-minute audio interview with Cowgill during which he
discusses the difficulties faced by Lt. Col. Dyess in transforming the 21st Pursuit Squadron into infantry, Dyess’s
compassion for his men and his efforts to stay conspicuously in command, as well as Cowgill’s recollections of
his last meeting with Dyess and the powerful force of the Texan's personality (Passcode: 0-22526)
Visit/click 4-4-43.com for information on 4-4-43: Lt. Col. William Edwin Dyess and The Greatest Story of the
War in the Pacific, a new documentary film on the life and war of Lt. Col. Dyess
Visit/click philippine-defenders.lib.wv.us/pdf/1942/battle_of_the_points_pdf.pdf to read “Triumph on
Bataan,” a feature story detailing Lt. Col. Dyess’s exploits as an infantry commander, that appeared in the
September/October 2010 issue of World War II Magazine
Read The Dyess Story: The Complete Eyewitness Account of the Death March From Bataan by Lt. Col. William
Edwin Dyess (as told to Charles Leavelle) 1944
Read Escape From Davao: The Forgotten Story of the Most Daring Prison Break of the Pacific War by John D.
Lukacs, 2011
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PREVIOUSLY AWARDED MEDALS of LT. COL. WILLIAM EDWIN DYESS
Distinguished Service Cross
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of
Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished
Service Cross to Captain (Air Corps), William Edwin Dyess (ASN: 0-22526),
United States Army Air Forces, for extraordinary heroism in connection with
military operations against an armed enemy while serving as Pilot of a P-40
Fighter Airplane in the 21st Pursuit Squadron, 5th Interceptor Command, FAR
EAST Air Force, in aerial combat against enemy forces on Bataan Peninsula,
Philippine Islands, in February 1942. When the remnants of an enemy landing
party, numbering approximately seventy-five men, firmly entrenched along the
shore under a cliff on the western coast of Bataan, were able to repulse
with heavy losses all overland attempts to dislodge them, volunteers were
called for to undertake an attack from the sea in two small boats. Captain
Dyess volunteered, commanded one of the boats, and in spite of heavy fire
from the defenders and bombing, during the course of the attack, by nine
enemy dive-bombers, succeeded in neutralizing the enemy position, thereby
preventing further losses to our forces. Captain Dyess’s unquestionable
valor is in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and
reflects great credit upon himself, the Far East Air Force, and the United
States Army Air Forces.
General Orders: Headquarters, South West Pacific Area, General Orders No.
19 (August 7, 1942)
Action Date: Feb-42
Company: 21st Pursuit Squadron
Regiment: 5th Interceptor Command
Division: Far East Air Force
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Distinguished Service Cross
Captain (Air Corps) William Edwin Dyess (ASN: 0-22526), United States Army
Air Forces, was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary
heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy while
serving as Pilot of a P-40 Fighter Airplane in the 21st Pursuit Squadron,
24th Pursuit Group, FAR EAST Air Force, while participating in a bombing
mission against enemy Japanese surface vessels on 2 March 1942, over Subic
Bay, Philippine Islands. On this date Captain Dyess hung a 500-pound bomb
with a jury-rigged bomb release on a P-40 and, with three other pilots,
bombed and strafed Japanese shipping in Subic Bay. Three times that day he
braved heavy flak, destroying or damaging several small vessels, warehouses,
and supply dumps. The personal courage and zealous devotion to duty
displayed by Captain Dyess on this occasion have upheld the highest
traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself,
the Far East Air Force, and the United States Army Air Forces.
General Orders: Headquarters, U.S. Army Forces in the Far East, General
Orders No. 39 (1942)
Action Date: 2-Mar-42
Company: 21st Pursuit Squadron
Regiment: 24th Pursuit Group
Division: Far East Air Force
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Distinguished Service Cross
Major (Air Corps) William Edwin Dyess (ASN: 0-22526), United States Army Air
Forces, was awarded a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster in lieu of a Second Award of
the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism in connection with
military operations against an armed enemy while serving with Philippine
Guerilla Forces during the period 4 April 1943 through 20 July 1944. Major
Dyess was one of ten men including two Naval Officers, three Air Corps
Officers, and two Marine Corps Officers who escaped after nearly a year in
captivity after the fall of Bataan and Corregidor. The ten men evaded their
captors for days until connecting with Filipino Guerillas under Wendell
Fertig. The officers remained with the guerillas for weeks, obtaining vital
information which they carried with them when they were subsequently
evacuated by American submarines. Their escape was the only mass escape from
a Japanese prison camp during the war. The personal courage and zealous
devotion to duty displayed by Major Dyess during this period have upheld the
highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon
himself, the Prisoner of War Division, and the United States Army Air
Forces.
General Orders: Headquarters, U.S. Army Forces in the Far East, General
Orders No. 46 (1943)
Action Date: April 4 - July 20, 1943
Company: 21st Pursuit Squadron
Regiment: 24th Pursuit Group
Division: Prisoner of War
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Silver Star
Lieutenant Colonel (Air Corps) William Edwin Dyess (ASN: 0-22526), United
States Army Air Forces, was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in
connection with military operations against an opposing armed force during
World War II.
General Orders: War Department, General Orders No. 85 (1946)
Silver Star
Lieutenant Colonel (Air Corps) William Edwin Dyess (ASN: 0-22526), United
States Army Air Forces, was awarded a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster in lieu of a
Second Award of the Silver Star for gallantry in connection with military
operations against an opposing armed force during World War II.
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Legion of Merit
Lieutenant Colonel (Air Corps) William Edwin Dyess (ASN: 0-22526), United
States Army Air Forces, was awarded the Legion of Merit for exceptionally
meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services to the
Government of the United States
Action Date: World War II
Prisoner of War Medal
Major (Air Corps) William Edwin Dyess (ASN: 0-22526), United States Army Air
Forces, was captured in the Philippine Islands on 9 April 1942, and was
interned as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese until his successful escape
from captivity in 1943.
Action Date: April 9, 1942 - 1943
Division: Prisoner of War (Philippine Islands)
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Soldier's Medal
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of
Congress, July 2, 1926, takes pride in presenting the Soldier's Medal
(Posthumously) to Lieutenant Colonel (Air Corps) William Edwin Dyess (ASN:
0-22526), United States Army Air Forces, for heroism involving voluntary
risk of life not involving conflict with an armed enemy, at Burbank,
California, on 22 December 1943, by crash landing his airplane in order to
avoid hitting civilians on a broad road where a comparatively safe landing
could have been made. This act of self-sacrifice resulted in the death of
Colonel Dyess.
General Orders: Department of the Army, General Orders No. 11, (February 7,
1944)
Action Date: 22-Dec-43
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“ONE-MAN SCOURGE:” The LT. COL. ED DYESS exhibit at
THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE U.S. AIR FORCE, Dayton, Ohio
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SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE AND ARTICLES
Note: Nat Floyd of the New York Times was one of five major media outlet (in addition to reporters from Life, the AP, UPI,
and Reuters) correspondents to be “embedded” with U.S. forces and covering the fighting in the Philippines during the
dark early days of World War II. Floyd was evacuated to Mindanao and then Australia before the surrender of Bataan in
April 1942.
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