User:PIAM54/sandbox

=== Military Ranks and Dates ===

Military Career
Following his graduation from West Point in 1931, Williams enlisted, as a 2nd Lt., in the U.S. Army Air Corps and completed his basic and advanced flight trainings at Randolph and Kelly Fields, San Antonio, TX. He opted for multi-engined aircraft (i.e. medium and heavy bombers). In 1938 he was honored as a 1st Lt., to be chosen one of the pilots of a pioneering flight of six early YB-17A "Flying Fortress" four-engined heavy bombers, on President Roosevelt's prescient Hemispheric Defense Initiative, flying 6,000 miles from Langley Field, VA, to Lima, Peru and Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 1941 the United States Army Signal Corps released a photograph of Army planes arriving at Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana. Williams. by then a Major, was shown on guard duty with the plane.

World War II
During the Second World War, Col. Williams became a renowned officer in the U.S. Army Air Forces' 9th Air Force as commander of the B-26 'Marauder' twin engined medium bombers of the 391st Bombardment Group from 1943 to 1945. He personally led more than 75 missions, often placing himself as lead pilot in his B-26 Lady Belle on low-level bombing runs against heavily defended Axis targets in Occupied France. He won Distinguished Flying Crosses from both the USAAF (with two Oak Leaf Clusters), as well as from the Royal Air Force, and the Croix de Guerre from liberated France. Thus three nations paid tribute to his valor and leadership. In 1945 Gerald E. Williams was awarded a Silver Star Citation for conspicuous gallantry in actionwhile serving with the Ninth Air Force.

"'The inexorable determination, outstanding skill and unhesitating courage of the officers and men of the group in so brilliantly carrying the attack to the enemy is in keeping with the highest traditions of the Army Air Forces.'"

Buenos Aires
On 21 April 1948 Col. Williams was appointed Asst. Air Attaché to the American Embassy in Buenos Aires. Less than a year later, on 17 January 1949, Col. Williams, his wife and six other Air Force officers and enlisted men, were killed when the Air Force C-47 transport piloted by Williams crashed on an Andean mountain in NW Argentina, on a flight from Panama en route to Buenos Aires.