On Thursday, August 29, 2024, East Battalion members of the Chatham County Fire Department raised the American flag in honor of the memory of Colonel William “Bill” Wheeler. Colonel Wheeler was a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and hailed form Jefferson City, Missouri. As a member of the Greatest Generation, he joined the Army in April 1941 as an infantryman.  

After applying for a pilot slot with the Army Air Corps, he commissioned as a second lieutenant and received his pilot’s wings in December 1942, one year after the attacks on Pearl Harbor. Wheeler left active duty in 1945 to serve with a Reserve unit at Scott Field, Illinois, but commissioned into the U.S. Army Air Forces a year later. The Army Air Forces would become the U.S. Air Force in 1947. Serving in World War II and the Cold War, he flew the PT-19, AT-6, AT-7, C-119 and B-47. Wheeler retired on March 1, 1970, and was living Savannah. Colonel Wheeler passed away, August 20, 2024, and was 106 years young.

Chatham Fire raised the flag Thursday, at 11a.m. over West bound lanes of Highway 80 near Station 8. Colonel Wheeler will be laid to rest next to his wife Mary at Arlington National Cemetery.