Courtesy fedflix, public.resource.org Brigadier General William W. Spruance was commissioned in the US Army Field Artillery on his graduation from Princeton University in 1939, and entered active duty a year later. Pioneering the use of light planes, he piloted his own aircraft with General Patton’s Second Armored Division. He completed military flight training in 1943, and transferred to the Air Corps, later serving in the China-Burma India theater flying the “Hump.” He was released from active duty in 1946. He was an original member of the Delaware Air National Guard, organized in September, 1946, and served in various positions until he was named Assistant Adjutant General for Air, with the rank of Brigadier General, in 1956. He retired from that post in 1976. He has been awarded the Distinguished Service Medal; the Distinguished Flying Cross with one oak leaf cluster; the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters; the Conspicuous Service Cross of Delaware; and a Command Pilot rating, with more than 4500 hours. Since a near-fatal crash in 1961, resulting in extensive burns, he has given more than 1400 lectures on crash survival and flight safety to more than 140000 people, and has made several training films. He has received many testimonials from those who credit him with saving their lives. Department of the Air Force Flight Safety and Crash Survival with BG William Spruance (Retired) AVA20883VNB1, October 1998 This program is an aircraft crash survival presentation, by BG William Spruance (Retired), who survived a jet fighter crash and underwent numerous life threatening surgeries. He has lived a great portion of his life encouraging others to ‘think safety.’