Early Sunday morning on December 7, 1941, a 24-year old dive bomber pilot from Minneapolis, Ensign Walter M. Willis, left the carrier USS Enterprise with his squadron on a routine scouting mission as the carrier returned to Hawaii from Wake Island. He was flying a Douglas SBD Dauntless. As his squadron approached Oahu, they were suddenly attacked by an incoming squadron of Japanese Zero fighter planes. Purely by accident, they had stumbled upon Japanese planes attacking Pearl Harbor. Willis and his gunner, Coxswain Fred Ducolon, never came back. Later reports indicated that they knocked two enemy planes from the sky before going down at sea. He was one of the first American airmen to die in World War II.∼Walter was lost at sea in aerial combat over the Pacific Ocean.
Early Sunday morning on December 7, 1941, a 24-year old dive bomber pilot from Minneapolis, Ensign Walter M. Willis, left the carrier USS Enterprise with his squadron on a routine scouting mission as the carrier returned to Hawaii from Wake Island. He was flying a Douglas SBD Dauntless. As his squadron approached Oahu, they were suddenly attacked by an incoming squadron of Japanese Zero fighter planes. Purely by accident, they had stumbled upon Japanese planes attacking Pearl Harbor. Willis and his gunner, Coxswain Fred Ducolon, never came back. Later reports indicated that they knocked two enemy planes from the sky before going down at sea. He was one of the first American airmen to die in World War II.∼Walter was lost at sea in aerial combat over the Pacific Ocean.
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ENS, US NAVY WORLD WAR II
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Memorial marker and he is also among the Tablets of the missing at the Honolulu Memorial.
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