William V Laws
Military
IWM, Roger Freeman Collection
Object Number - FRE 5631 - William V Laws of the 91st Bomb Group with his B-17 Flying Fortress. Image by Dale J Darling, 91st Bomb Group. Written on slide casing: 'Jorsy Pilot...
Records available online show that William V Laws flew at least two different B-17 Flying Fortresses, nicknamed “The Wild Hare” and “Mah Ideel”, as part of a combat tour with the 91st Bomb Group who flew out of Bassingbourn, Cambridgeshire.
William was from Astoria, Oregon and worked as a fireman before the war. He enlisted in 1943 at the age of 25 and completed his combat tour unscathed.
E. J. “Bob” Kelley, who trained as a pilot with Laws and also joined the 91st Bomb Group, wrote in an article for The Ragged Irregulars in 1973:
“The only one I knew after the war was Laws. He stayed in the Air Force and was killed later in a crash at Goose Bay, Lab.”
Laws was one of twenty-three people who were killed when an Air Transport Command C-54 aircraft crashed, as thick snow fell, just after midnight on 10 December 1947, into isolated woodland north of Goose Bay Airport. The bodies were retrieved by helicopters over the following days.
William was buried in Golden Gate National Cemetery, California.
Connections
See how this entry relates to other items in the archive by exploring the connections below.
Units served with
- Unit Hierarchy: Squadron
- Air Force: Eighth Air Force
- Type Category: Bombardment
- Unit Hierarchy: Group
- Air Force: Eighth Air Force
- Type Category: Bombardment
Aircraft
Places
- Site type: Airfield
Events
| Event | Location | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Born |
18 July 1917 | ||
|
Enlisted |
Indianapolis, IN, USA | 17 March 1943 | At Fort Benjamin Harrison |
|
Died |
Goose Bay Airport, 6 Vulcan Rd, Happy Valley-Goose Bay, NL A0P 1C0, Canada | 9 December 1947 | |
|
Buried |
Golden Gate, California, USA |
Revisions
NARA files verified ASN upon entry, Officer Number and AM w/5 oak leaf clusters.
Occupation and address in 1940 Astoria City Directory via Ancestry.com
Internment record via Ancestry.com
William V Laws’ enlistment record: https://aad.archives.gov/aad/record-detail.jsp?dt=893&mtch=1&cat=all&tf…
Crew photo of “The Wild Hare” available on Fold3: http://www.fold3.com/image/32156036/
91st Bomb Group records: http://www.91stbombgroup.com/crewphotos/mah_ideel_crew.html
Record of the crash on Aviation Safety Network website: http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19471210-0
Article in the Ottawa Journal, published 12 December 1947, with details of the crash: https://www.newspapers.com/image/49378019/
Grave record at Findagrave.com: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=laws&GSfn=william…;
