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Remember...William Miller Frye Jr.
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William Miller Frye Jr. was born September 17, 1919, in Wardensville, West Virginia, the eldest child of William and Hilda Heishman Frye.
William attended Wardensville schools and graduated from Wardensville High School, where he had played basketball and was editor of the school paper, the Wa-Ca-Pa. He attended the University of Maryland for two years before induction into the Army in January 1942.
He received his basic training at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, and Maxwell Field, Alabama. While stationed at Maxwell Field, he married Loraine Johnson and they become the parents of a daughter who was named Connie Jo. He received flight training at Fletcher Field in Mississippi, Walnut Field in Arkansas, and in March 1943 received his wings at George Field, Illinois.
William Frye was sent to England in December 1943 and took part in the invasions of Normandy, Southern France, and Holland. During his military career, he received the Air Medal with four oak leaf clusters and a presidential citation.
In April 1945, his parents received word that William, then a captain and flight commander in the Air Corps, had been missing in action on the German Front as of March 24. They were later informed that he had been killed in action on that date. The aircraft Captain Frye was piloting was shot down during an airborne crossing of the Rhine.
The body of Capt. William M. Frye Jr. was first buried in the Military Cemetery in Margraten, Holland, and in 1947 was returned to the United States and interred in the family plot in the Wardensville Cemetery at Wardensville.
Information provided by J. Kenneth Frye, brother, and Moorefield Examiner
West Virginia Archives and History welcomes any additional information that can be provided about these veterans, including photographs, family names, letters and other relevant personal history.
