US Olympic Gold Medalist, World War II Military Figure. Pilot Officer Fiske was an American pilot, who joined the Royal Air Force and became the first United States citizen to be killed in World War II. Born the son of a wealthy banking family, his ancestors immigrated to the United States from Suffolk, England in the seventeenth century. After attending school in Chicago, he and his family traveled to France in 1924. In 1928, he began lessons in Trinity Hall at Cambridge, studying Economics and History. At age sixteen, he was the driver of the five-member of the United States Winter Olympic bobsleigh team of 1928 at St. Moritz, Switzerland, and of the four-member team in 1932 at Lake Placid. His team received the Gold Medal in 1928. In 1932, the American team received another Gold Medal and a second American team received the Silver Medal. At the Lake Placid games, he carried the flag for the American teams at the opening ceremonies, which were presided over by Governor Franklin D Roosevelt of New York. The Billy Fiske trophy is named for him, the youngest Gold Medal winner in the sport. In 1939, using a frauded Canadian citizenship, he joined Britain's Royal Air Force. He became Acting Pilot Officer Fiske and three months later on July 12th, he was assigned to No. 601 Auxiliary Air Force Squadron at Tangmere. While in battle in the air, he claimed two possible "kills". On August 16, 1940, his squadron was scrambled to repel Germany's Luftwaffe attack on the Tangmere aerodrome. Following the successful mission, Fiske was severely burned when his Hurricane crash-landed, catching fire. His plane had been badly damaged in a dogfight. With fatal burns, he died a day later from shock while a patient at the Royal West Sussex Hospital in Chichester. On August 20, 1940, he was laid to rest in the Boxgrove Cemetery in Sussex. He is honored as the first American airman in British Service to die in World War II. A few steps away from the black marble sarcophagus of the Naval hero, Admiral Lord Nelson, a memorial plaque honoring Fiske was unveiled at St. Paul's Cathedral in London on the Fourth of July in 1941 with the inscription "An American citizen who died that England might live."