Commander William F. Eadie, A Sailor's Story
Commander William F. Eadie, A Sailor's Story
Commander William F. Eadie was born on July 25, 1913, in Chicago, Illinois.
When the United States entered World War II, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and became a pilot of the Vought OS2U Kingfisher, a naval scout and rescue floatplane widely used in the Pacific Theater. Kingfisher pilots were tasked with reconnaissance, artillery spotting, and one of the war’s most dangerous missions, air-sea rescue.
During the war, Eadie took part in a dramatic rescue operation involving survivors stranded at sea for weeks. In one such mission, he located the survivors of a downed B-17, including famed World War I ace Captain Eddie Rickenbacker. After weeks adrift in the Pacific, the survivors were near death when they were spotted from the air.
Commander Eadie landed his Kingfisher on open water, carefully maneuvered through swells, and loaded the weakened men onto the aircraft’s wings, a common but hazardous rescue method when floats were overloaded. He then taxied the floatplane across rough seas toward safety, delivering them to a nearby base.
It was the kind of mission that required both flying skill and calm courage. There was no runway, no margin for error, and no guarantee the aircraft would lift again.
On January 8, 1945, Commander William F. Eadie’s Kingfisher went missing during operations in the Pacific. He never recovered.
He is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Commander Eadie’s service reflects a particular kind of wartime heroism, not the assault, but the search; not the charge, but the rescue. In the vast distances of the Pacific, men like him flew low over endless water, looking for tiny signs of life.
Sometimes they brought others home. Sometimes they did not return themselves.
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About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life
She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.
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