Wallace Wayne Lake was born February 18, 1921 in the Sandhills near Mullen, Nebraska. He attended school in Mullen, Hebron High School and Shelton Academy from where he graduated in 1939. It was while he was attending this academy that he yield his life to Jesus was baptized and became a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

He was a good student and was fond of airplanes even when a little child. He was a student at the Civil Aeronautics School of Hebron. Later he attended Hastings College and received further instruction in the Beebe Airport.

On the 20th of February, 1943 he was inducted in the United States Army Air Corps. He received training at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, Carbondale, Illinois and Randolph Field, Texas. He was selected to received his flying training with the Royal Air Force Cadets in this country from the Central Flying Training Command Headquarters at Randolph Field, Texas and received pilot's Wings and commission as 2nd Lt. June 17, 1944 in Miami, Oklahoma from both the American Air Force and the British Royal Air Force.

Lt. Lake received further instruction in instrument flying at Romulus, Detroit. He served overseas with the American Transport Command in China. On Oct. 7, 1944 he was reported "missing" in flight over the "Burma Road" between Kunming and Chengtu. The initial War Department report said that no trace of the plane or its crew had been found and they were pronounced dead. Later the bodies were found and eventually returned to there respective hometowns over a year later. He is now buried in the Rose Hill Cemetery, Hebron, Thayer County, Nebraska, USA.

Lt. Lake was one of over 2000 Americans who lost their lives defending China from their Japanese invaders from 1941-1945. He is commemorated on the The Monument to the Aviation Martyrs in the War of Resistance Against Japan in Nanjing, China.

Source of information: www.findagrave.com