WWII · Battle Death Record
William Nellis
First Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Forces · Nevada
Personnel File — Core Information
- Name
- William Nellis
- Entered the Service From
- Nevada
- Rank
- First Lieutenant
- Service
- U.S. Army Air Forces
- Unit / Regiment
- 513th Fighter Squadron, 406th Fighter Group
- War
- WWII
- Date of Death
- December 27, 1944
- Awards
- Air Medal with Oak Leaf Clusters, Purple Heart
- Burial / Memorial
- Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery and Memorial, Henri-Chapelle, Belgium
- Grave
- Plot G, Row 8, Grave 34
Their story
1st Lt. William Harrell Nellis flew 70 combat missions as a P-47 Thunderbolt pilot with the 513th Fighter Squadron, 406th Fighter Group, supporting Patton's Third Army. On December 27, 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, he was shot down by ground fire while strafing a German convoy near Winseler, Luxembourg; too low to bail out, he was killed in the crash. Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, was named in his honor in 1950.
Compiled from American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) and National Archives (NARA) records and public sources.
This record is one of more than 200,000 in our historical archive. Some information may have been corrupted or lost over decades of data conversion. Corrections are welcome — please contact the archive.