2nd Lt. William Hubert Wallace, Jr., the only child of Willie Lou and William Hubert Wallace, Sr., was born in Dallas, Texas, on August 23, 1918. Known as Bill, he grew up in the Oak Cliff section of the city, was a member of a Boy Scout troop, attended public schools and graduated from Sunset High School in January, 1936. He attended John Tarleton Agricultural College, worked at Sun Oil Company, and married Ernestine Devenport on August 1, 1941.
He enlisted in the U.S. Army, was licensed as a pilot for the Army Air Corps in 1943 and served in the China-Burma-India Theater during World War ll. Bill flew with the 14th Army Air Corp 425th Division of the 308th Bombardment Group. In terms of military genealogy, he was very much part of the proud and justly fabled family of Flying Tigers(1).
Bill was the pilot of a B-24 Liberator Bomber completing his eleventh mission to disrupt Japanese shipping, returning to the airbase at Kweilin in southern China when he encountered conditions impossible for landing and was forced to withdraw. Running out of fuel and finding no safe place to land, he ordered his crew of seven men to bail out. All his crew survived, but by the time Bill parachuted, the failing plane had lost too much altitude, and he was struck by something mid-air. He perished on June 10, 1944, and was buried in China.
On November 3, 1944, Bill's wife Ernestine gave birth in Dallas, Texas, to their only child, a daughter Judy Lynn.
On November 13, 1947, his remains were laid to rest with honors in Arlington National Cemetery.
Judy, her husband Larry Ikels, their son David and daughter Catherine Celestino, with her husband Carlos Celestino, and their sons Benjamin and Samuel together visited Arlington National Cemetery on November 28, 2015, to remember his life and service.
In 2006, in a mountain village near Kunming, China, a memorial was dedicated under the leadership of Dr. Patrick Lucas, an American academic and his students, to honor Bill Wallace's sacrifice and Chinese-American friendship. It was erected on the very spot Bill's body was found in 1944. The dedication in Chinese and English reads:

2nd Lt. William H. Wallace
B-24 Bomber Pilot
A Young Hero
Who Knowingly Exchanged His Life
Redeeming Seven Others
June 10, 1944

Never Forgotten
February 17, 2006

And a second statement, a wish:

May Americans and Chinese
Forever Remember
The Shared Sacrifices of Our Two Great Peoples
In Hope of Friendship and Peace

In 2016, Bill's daughter and her husband Larry Ikels traveled to Kunming, China to see the memorial for the first time and were warmly received by their Chinese hosts. Judy is currently writing a memoire about Bill and the pilgrimage to China.

(1)Chennault’s Forgotten Warriors, The Saga of the 308th Bomb Group in China, Carroll V. Glines , forward by Walter Boyne, Former Director, National Air and Space Museum, 1955 Schiffer Military Aviation History, Atglen, PA.