William David Pierson (1910 - 2010) was a US Army lieutenant who served in the US 1st Infantry Division during World War II. Pierson was demoted to Technical Sergeant after disobeying orders at the Battle of Kasserine Pass in 1943, and he fought under the command of Joseph Turner for the rest of the war.
Biography[]
Pierson on 6 June 1944
William Pierson was born in Enid, Oklahoma in 1910, and he enlisted in the US Army during the 1930s, rising through the ranks. Pierson and his comrade Joseph Turner would both serve as lieutenants in the US 1st Infantry Division during World War II, and the two of them fought at the Battle of Kasserine Pass in Tunisia in 1943. In that battle, Pierson disobeyed orders to withdraw, getting most of his squad killed as a result. Pierson was demoted to Technical Sergeant, and he became a member of Turner's squad. He became an embittered man, showing hostility to those serving under him. Pierson would fight in D-Day, Operation Cobra, the Battle of Aachen, the Battle of Hurtgen Forest, the Battle of the Bulge, and the push to the Rhine at Remagen, and he took command of the squad after Turner's death at The Bulge. He became more ruthless after Turner's loss, but he was mellowed after Robert Zussman was captured at Remagen, leading a mission to rescue him from a concentration camp. After the war's end, he returned to Oklahoma, having bid his men farewell on better terms than before. He died in 2010 from heart failure.