Shot down by flak and crashed after the crew baled out SW of Chalons-sur-Marne, France on the return from a mission to Berlin on 4 Mar 1944 in B-17G 42-31165.



William evaded capture and subsequently joined the French Resistance and fought alongside Henry S. Chappell of the RAF. These two airmen, “evaders" in German occupied France, took the hard decision that would greatly increase the danger to themselves. Now in civilian clothes, with fake French IDs, posing as farmhands but full active members of the FFI operating in a wide sector engaged in destruction, sabotage and espionage against the occupying German forces to take up the fight along side the ordinary civilian French men and women and their families that had given them shelter who were fighting for the survival of France, their culture and essentially, for all Europe caught up in the conflict against Nazi Germany. A massive risk that only a few others but for volunteer Allied agents ever took throughout WW2.