William Dean Whitaker was born in 1925 and raised in a suburb of Los Angeles, California. Dean, as he is known, talks briefly about his parents and his brothers, for his youth quickly ended when he joined the Air Force and became an aviation cadet once he had turned 18 years old. The year was 1943 and World War II was raging. He became a member of the 398 th Bomb Group and flew twenty missions before being captured by the Germans.
Wilma Freemyer lived in Las Vegas, Nevada for 56 years. She was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on February 14, 1919. Freemyer worked as an advertising manager for the Las Vegas Review-Journal for 42 years and was a member of the Fraternal Order of Eagles Auxiliary Arie 1213. She served as president of the Eagles Auxiliary in 1956. She died in Las Vegas, Nevada on July 8, 1995.