William G. Farrow

William Glover Farrow (September 24, 1918 – October 15, 1942) was a lieutenant in the United States Army Air Forces who participated in the Doolittle Raid. In February 1942, he volunteered to participate in the raid, which took place on April 18 that year. Farrow was captured by the Japanese after the completion of his bombing mission. He was tried, and along with two other crew members, sentenced to death and executed by firing squad. His ashes were recovered and interred in the Arlington National Cemetery in 1946, and he posthumously received multiple awards.

Early life William Farrow was born in Darlington, South Carolina, on September 24, 1918. His father Isaac was employed at a cigarette company in Raleigh, North Carolina; his mother Jessie, born in 1897, was the daughter of a wealthy tobacco warehouse owner. At age sixteen, William became an Eagle Scout. He graduated from St. John's High School in May 1935, and went on to attend the University of South Carolina.

Military career During the fall of 1939, he received his pilot training at the Hawthorne School of Aeronautics in Orangeburg, South Carolina. After the aircraft's targets in Nagoya, which included an oil tank and aircraft factory, had been bombed, Farrow intended to land in Quzhou. However, the Japanese had deactivated the beacon that Farrow was using for direction. Farrow wrote letters to his mother and to a friend, Lt. Ivan Ferguson. At dawn on October 15, the men were taken to a public cemetery near Shanghai, where they were shot by a Japanese firing squad.

He is the namesake of the Arnold Air Society’s William Glover Farrow Squadron hosted by AFROTC Detachment 775 at USC. In 2013, he was posthumously inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame.