William “Billy” Wright Moreland was born January 8, 1925 in Bushong, Lyon county, Kansas, son of Lafayette Everett Moreland and Elsie Mae Houk. The family lived in the DeBaun community, 3 miles southeast of Bushong, where his father was engaged in farming. Billy had four brothers and two sisters. He attended DeBaun rural school, and graduated from Bushong High School in 1942. When he registered for the draft in January 1943 he was working on the family farm.

In February 1943 he enlisted in the Army, along with his older brother Jay, and two local classmates and friends, Rex Arthur Gore and Johnny Herrick. All were from the small town of Bushong, population 81. All were attached to the 149th Engineer Combat Battalion, Co. B, 6th Engineer Special Brigade. They trained in southern states, and in January 1944 the 149th deployed overseas to England, to prepare for Operation Overlord and the D-Day invasion.

On D-Day, 149th Engineer Combat Battalion, scheduled for landing on Dog Red, landed on Easy Green. They set to work there, and a small detachment began digging a path through the dune line to the road paralleling the shore. A second detail wormed its way through gaps cut in the barbed wire and approached the base of the cliffs, only to be halted by an antitank ditch. They encountered fierce enemy fire, and the human cost of the engineers' heroism on Omaha was enormous.

Staff Sergeant William W. Moreland, missing in action, was declared dead June 6, 1944.

His name appears on the Tablets of the Missing, Normandy American Cemetery, Normandy, France.

His brother Jay was also reported as missing in action on June 6, 1944. His parents did not receive confirmation of Jay being declared dead until December 1944. Rex Arthur Gore and Johnny Herrick also died on D-Day, and left the small community and families of Bushong in mourning.

A memorial stone bearing the names of William W. Moreland and his brother Jay B. Moreland is in the Bushong Cemetery, Bushong, Lyon county, Kansas.

References:

1925 Kansas Territory Census; Roll: KS1925_84; Line: 25

1930; Census Place: Agnes, Lyon, Kansas; Page: 4B; Enumeration District: 0003

1940; Census Place: Agnes City, Lyon, Kansas; Page: 6A; Enumeration District: 56-3

Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/22243856/william-wright-moreland

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56647993/william-wright-moreland

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (++www.storiesbehindthestars.org++). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen on Fold3.

William W Moreland