William F. Kuykendall served in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II as a First Lieutenant in the 524th Fighter Squadron, 27th Fighter Group. He entered the service in West Virginia. Pilot of the P-47 Thunderbolt serial number 42-26381 C which took off from Le Luc, on an armed reconnaissance of Valencia. His plane was shot by flak during a strafing pass of a convoy in the Rhone Valley near La Roche-de-Glun (5 km NW of Valence). Kuykendall evacuated the airplane by parachute between 700 and 1000 feet at 1430 on August 29, 1944. He was wounded and taken prisoner to a Red Cross Hospital in Lyon. He died on August 30, 1944 and is now buried at Ardennes American Cemetery and Memorial, Neuville-en-Condroz, Arrondissement de Liège, Liège, Belgium. He is also honored on a monument to the fallen heroes of Mineral County, WV, located in front of the Mineral County Courthouse, Keyser, West Virginia.