Willard Donald Smiddie was born in 1925 in Tennessee to Richard Elmer Smiddie and Kitty Lou Lowery. He attended Chattanooga High School in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and enlisted on 5 May 1943 at Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia. He served with the Army Air Force and was Killed in Action.
The Chattanooga Daily Times, 25 March 1945
Cpl. Willard D. Smiddie, son of Mr. and Mrs. R.E. Smiddie Sr., 205 West Sixth Street, was killed in action in New Guinea Feb. 2, the War Department reported to his parents.
An engineer-gunner aboard an A-20 plane, Cpl. Smiddie received his wings at Buckingham Field, Fort Myers, Fla., in May, 1943. A former employe of the Red Food Stores and the American Lava Company he had been overseas only three weeks when killed. He is survived by his parents; one brother, Cpl. Richard E. Smiddie Jr., now with an army unit in the Philippines. He was a former student at Chattanooga High School.
- Rank: Corporal
- Date of birth: 11 June 1925
- Date of death: 2 February 1945
- County: Hamilton
- Hometown: Chattanooga
- Service Branch: Army/Army Air Forces
- Theater: Pacific
- Conflict: World War II
- Awards: Purple Heart
- Burial/Memorial Location: Chattanooga Memorial Park, Chattanooga, Hamilton County, Tennessee
- Location In Memorial: Pillar XII, Top Panel
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