Major General Creer selected for induction into Utah Aviation Hall of Fame

  • Published
  • By Lee Anne Hensley
  • Hilltop Times staff
The late Maj. Gen. William E. Creer, a World War II aviator from Utah, has been selected for induction into the Utah Aviation Hall of Fame.

The ceremony will be held Monday, May 25, at 9:30 a.m. in the Fighter Gallery of the Hill Aerospace Museum. The event is one of the kickoff events scheduled before Air Force Week Salt Lake City, which will officially begin June 1.

Former Congressman James Hansen will present the UAHOF Medal to the Creer family at the Memorial Day induction ceremony and will assist in the unveiling of the Creer exhibit.

Creer will be the 23rd member to be inducted into the UAHOF. The selection was made from among 20 candidates by the Pioneer Chapter of the Order of Daedalians, who sponsor and administer the UAHOF as assigned by the Utah governorship since 1996, reports the chapter's administrator, retired Rear Admiral Jeremy Taylor. The UAHOF was established to recognize aviators in the state of Utah who accomplished heroic actions and to foster advances in the state's aviation programs.

Creer's aviation accomplishments included leading 17 mass formation missions with his B-17 Flying Fortress against targets in Germany during World War II, and
subsequent to the war, Creer set speed records in the B-47 Stratojet and led missions into Vietnam in his B-52 Stratofortress. When he completed his Air Force career in 1968, Creer logged more than 9,000 hours of flight time, almost entirely in Air Force bombers.

During his career, Creer earned the Distinguished Service Medal, four awards of the Distinguished Flying Cross, four Air Medals, two awards of the Legion of Merit, the British Distinguished Flying Cross and two awards of the French Croix de Guerre.

After the induction ceremony, the Hill Aerospace Museum will also host its fifth annual Memorial Day program at the World War II Memorial Chapel at 11 a.m. The Pioneer Flight of the Order of Daedalians, a fraternity of former, retired and active military pilots, have planned this free, public event, which they themed "Lest We Forget: Honoring the Brave and the Fallen," and will include guest speaker Sen. Robert Bennett, (R-Utah).

"There are a lot of competing distractions during Memorial Day weekend,"
said Hill Aerospace Museum Director Scott Wirz. "The ceremony on Monday will bring an opportunity to remember that we only have the freedoms we do because of the men and women who serve in our military."

The program will include readings of patriotic poems, stories and letters written from the battlefields of World War I, and patriotic music will be sung.

The event will conclude with the tolling of the chapel bells, which will ring one time for each of Utah's 56 fallen soldiers in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The museum will also be open during its regular hours on Memorial Day, from 9 a.m. until 4:30 p.m.