PFC Dale McWilliams was born in Kansas and moved to Colorado when he was a child.  He lived in Bloom, Colorado, which is now a ghost town in Otero County. The Rocky Mountain News of 11/21/1929 tells of a Santa Claus letter writing contest of which a very young McWilliams was a contestant!  We believe this is the same person as it is highly unlikely that there are more than one Dale McWilliams living in Otero County at the same time.

He later moved to Las Animas County; these were the dust bowl years and many places of eastern Colorado were vanishing. Since Bloom is where he lived most of his life we will list that as his home town.  PFC McWilliams is among several others in our database who are from Colorado places that are now ghost towns - to the point that even their name on the Memorial Wall may be the only remaining evidence their whole town ever was here.

We believe PFC McWilliams entered serviced from Las Animas County.  He was serving with the 200th Coast Artillery Corps in the Philippines when Imperial Japanese forces began their invasion on 8 Dec 1941. The 200th was among the American and Filipino forces that were compelled to surrender on the Bataan Peninsula on 9 Apr 1942. Dale endured the Bataan Death March that followed, but later died in a POW camp.

His remains are interned at the Santa Fe National Cemetery, Santa Fe, New Mexico.