Source: Torque 43-K

Source: Silver Wings Yearbook

Lt William 'Bill' Marion Andrew Jr., US Army Air Corp in 1943, Santa Rosa, California, USA.
He was the son of William Marion Andrew SR & Anna Mae Long Andrew Kenaston. He was born at Rupert, Idaho on January 27, 1923. During World War II his squadron of P-39s was flying from their air base in Santa Rosa over the Carquenez Straits at the northeast side of the San Francisco Bay Area. They wanted to test the airplanes under different conditions, including variations in altitude, and the squadron leader asked Bill to fly his plane above the rest of the squadron. Bill did this, and the next thing his friend Johnny Lorsch knew he saw Bill's P-39 in a steep dive through the squadron with Bill slumped forward and unconscious in the cockpit. Johnny Lorsch said he communicated to Bill by radio and Bill appeared to gain consciousness periodically. Johnny suggested that Bill bail out, but Bill refused because he wanted to try to save the airplane. Also, it was very difficult and dangerous to bail out of a P-39 because the doors were on the side of the airplane and were hinged on the front, so you had to open the door against the wind. There had also been a problem with pilots hitting the stabilizer after they bailed out so bailing out was not an easy option. Bill apparently tried to bring the P-39 in for a belly landing on the surface of the water just upstream from the Carquenez Straits bridge. Some way, Bill was able to get out of the airplane, either before or after it crashed, but he had gotten caught on the pilings under the bridge and an autopsy showed that the cause of death was drowning. His life preserver was inflated, but he was not able to get to the surface. Bill's volunteering to join the Army Air Corps, and his later death in helping to diagnose one of the most significant problems with the P-39, probably saved the lives of numerous other pilots who would have died because of the same problem. His death also helped save all of us from the certain tyranny that would have resulted from our losing the Second World War. (Information provided by our brother Clair H. Kenaston)