William G. Farrow

William Glover Farrow (24 September 1918 – 15 October 1942) was a lieutenant in the United States Army Air Corps who participated in the Doolittle Raid. Born to Isaac and Jessie Farrow, he graduated from high school in 1935 and attended the University of South Carolina. Farrow joined the Air Corps training program in November 1940, and was commissioned in July 1941. In February 1942, he volunteered to participate in the Doolittle Raid, which took place in April of that year. Farrow was captured by the Japanese after the completion of his bombing mission. He was tried and, along with two other crew members, sentenced to death and executed by firing squad. His ashes were recovered and interred in the Arlington National Cemetery in 1946, and he posthumously received multiple awards.

Early life

William Farrow was born in Darlington, South Carolina, on 24 September 1918. His father Isaac was employed at a cigarette company in Raleigh, North Carolina; his mother Jessie, born in 1897, was the daughter of a wealthy tobacco warehouse owner. At age sixteen, William became an Eagle Scout. He graduated from St. John's High School in May 1935, and went on to attend the University of South Carolina.

During the fall of 1939, he received his pilot training at the Hawthorne School of Aeronautics in Orangeburg, South Carolina. On 23 November 1940, Farrow joined the United States Army Air Corps' Aviation Cadet Program. In July of the following year, he obtained his aviator badge and a commission as a second lieutenant at Kelly Field in Texas. Following his completion of the B-25 Mitchell training program, he was sent to Pendleton Field in Oregon as a member of the 34th Bomb Squadron.

Doolittle Raid

In February 1942, following the squadron's transfer to Columbia Army Air Base in January, Farrow volunteered to participate in the Doolittle Raid, an attempt to retaliate against the Japanese as a result of their attack on Pearl Harbor. At the time, however, the mission was secret and its target unknown to the volunteers. On 1 April 1942, after training in various places around the United States, the crews and their respective aircraft departed from San Francisco aboard the USS Hornet (CV-8). The mission took place on 18 April. The B-25 which Farrow piloted, named Bat out of Hell, was the sixteenth and final aircraft to depart from the Hornet. After the aircraft's targets in Nagoya, which included an oil tank and aircraft factory, had been bombed, Farrow intended to land in Chuchow. However, the Japanese had deactivated the beacon that Farrow was using for direction.

Capture and death

Sixteen hours after departure from the Hornet, the aircraft's fuel exhausted, Farrow and his crew bailed out near Japanese-controlled Nanchang, China. The Japanese captured Farrow and all members of his crew, and subjected them to imprisonment, interrogation, and torture. The men were subsequently tried and sentenced to death. Most of the crew members' sentences were commuted to life imprisonment by the Emperor of Japan, but the sentences of three men, including Farrow, stood. The night before their execution, the men were permitted to write final letters. The International Red Cross was to mail the letters after receiving them from the Japanese. The Japanese, however, did not pass on the letters, and they were never mailed. Farrow wrote letters to his mother and to a friend, Lt. Ivan Ferguson. In the letter addressed to his mother, Farrow wrote:

You have given much, so much more to me than I have returned, but such is the Christian way. You are and always will be a real angel. Be brave and strong for my sake. I love you, Mom, from the depths of a full heart...Don't let this get you down. Just remember God will make everything right and that I'll see you all again in the hereafter...So let me implore you to keep your chin up. Be brave and strong for my sake. P.S. My insurance policy is in my bag in a small tent in Columbia. Read Thanatopsis by Bryant if you want to know how I am taking this. My faith in God is complete, so I am unafraid.

At dawn on 15 October, the men were taken to a public cemetery near Shanghai, where they were shot by a Japanese firing squad. Following the bodies' cremation, the ashes were taken to a mortuary. After the war ended, the men's ashes were recovered and their letters found in a secret file of the War Ministry Building in Tokyo. In 1946, Farrow was interred with honors at the Arlington National Cemetery, Section 12, Grave 157.

Honors

Farrow was posthumously given multiple awards. These included the Order of the Sacred Tripod (寶鼎勳章) of the Republic of China, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the Purple Heart. He was also awarded the Prisoner of War Medal, which, by authorization of Congress in 1985, was given to all members of the United States Armed Forces who had been a prisoner of war after 5 April 1917.