William Frank Dykes
Military Data
Length Service 01
Unit A Company, st Battalion, 4th Marines, 3rd Marine Division, III MAF
Casualty Data
Start Tour 13 April 1967
Incident Date 29 October 1967
Casualty Date 29 October 1967
Age at Loss 20
Location, South Vietnam
Remains Body recovered
Casualty Type Hostile, died outright
Casualty Reason Ground casualty
Casualty Detail Other explosive device
Vietnam Wall Panel 28E Line 096
City Marine dies in Vietnam War action
Marine Lance Corporal William Frank Dykes of Kingsport has been killed in Vietnam fighting, the Defense Department has announced. Dykes, 20, was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Earl V. Dykes of Packing Road in the Bloomingdale communicty.
The Defense Department said Dykes sustained a fragmentation wound to the head from a hostile grenade while engaged in action against Communist forces in the Phue Thien Province, Republic of Vietnam. According to the information, he was killed last Sunday.
Dykes was graduated in 1966 from Ketron High School and enlisted in the Marine Corps in October of that year. He had been in Vietnam eight months.
Mrs. Dykes, who said she and her husband received word of their son’s death Tuesday, found it hard to believe, and expressed hope that perhaps an error has been made. She said she did not know her son was stationed at the place of his death. The last she heard he was serving at Camp Evans near Da Nang.
In addition to his parents, Dykes is survived by a sister, Miss Betty Jean Dykes of Kingsport, and three brothers, Donnie, Charles and Tommy, all of the home.
He is the first cousin of Daniel L. Gregg, who also was killed in Vietnam.
- Rank: Lance Corporal
- Date of birth: 5 November 1946
- Date of death: 29 October 1967
- County: Sullivan
- Hometown: Kingsport
- Service Branch: Marine Corps
- Division/Assignment: 4th Marines, 3rd Marine Division
- Conflict: Vietnam
- Awards: Purple Heart, Vietnamese Service Medal, National Defense Medal, Republic of Vietnam Medal.
- Burial/Memorial Location: Oak Hill Cemetery, Kingsport, Sullivan County, TN
- Location In Memorial: Pillar XXIV, Middle Panel
- Contact us to sponsor William F. Dykes
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