DUANE
Duane's take
Here's the story as it's told on the official marker for Lt. Col. William E.
Dyess, and I want you to sit with every word of it. Born August 9, 1916, William Edwin Dyess grew up right here in Albany, Texas — walked the halls of Albany High School, probably never imagining what the world had in store for him. But the world had plenty.
When World War II came, Dyess went in as an aviation and infantry commander, deployed to the Philippines. And then came 1942, and the fall of Bataan. If you know that name, you already feel something tighten in your chest.
If you don't — Bataan was the kind of defeat that history doesn't let you forget. Dyess was captured. And what followed capture was the Death March.
He survived it. Let that settle. Thousands didn't.
William Edwin Dyess did. A year after that march, he escaped his captors. Escaped.
Made it back to the United States, and when he got there, he didn't stay quiet. His published accounts of what enemy forces had done to prisoners of war — the real, documented truth of it — greatly aided the war effort and influenced world opinion. The pen, they say, and here the facts back it up.
Now here's the part that'll stay with you. In November 1943, Dyess came back to Albany — back home — and made an appearance right there at the Albany football field. He was on his way to California.
That was the last time Albany saw him. Just weeks later, on December 22, 1943, he died in a plane crash. He was much-decorated.
And his name endures — Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene carries it still, which means every time someone lands there or takes off, a kid from Albany High School goes with them.
What the marker says
(Aug. 9, 1916 - Dec. 22, 1943) A graduate of Albany High School, William Edwin Dyess was an aviation and infantry commander in the Phillipines during World War II. Captured at the fall of Bataan in 1942, he survived the Death March and escaped his captors a year later. Back in the U.S., his published accounts of enemy actions toward prisoners of war greatly aided the war effort and influenced world opinion. In November 1943, he made an appearance at the Albany football field on his way to California, where he died in a plane crash just weeks later. Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene is named for the much-decorated war hero. Recorded - 2004