Another Tiger hero passed

Oct 20, 2021, 6:34 PM

I have been out with surgery to replace my pacemaker(good for another 10 years) and may have missed it if mentioned here before.

I noticed in the recent CLEMSON WORLD Magazine that William"Bill" Funchess '48 died recently. Bill was a friend and was among the first to enter the Korean War. He fought his way out of the Pusan Perimeter
and was on the drive to the Yalu river when the Chinese entered the conflict. During that chaos Bill was captured and spent the rest of the war in a POW camp, almost three years of torture and depravation.

My unit was responsible for the prisoner exchange at the end of the war. During that operation, a Major Grambling who had taught us Military Science at Clemson, and also had been captured early in the conflict, came through. A former roommate of mine at Clemson had ended up in my unit(small world) and we had a chance to spend several hours one night talking with Major Grambling. He told us about Bill's experiences, saying that Bill would resist the "Reorientation" sessions conducted by the North Koreans and argue with their nonsense. This resulted in torture and solitary confinement.

Near the end of the transfer Bill was among the last Americans to come down. They had threatened to charge him with War Crimes and keep him. In fact he was flown to our processing center by helicopter. My former roommate and I got word that he was approaching and we ran up to the Heliport to greet him. As Bill stepped off the helicopter we both started yelling, "Hey Bill, Hey Bill". He immediately recognized us and gave a big thumbs up.We also had a chance for a long visit that night and heard some horrible stories. Bill wrote a book about his days as an POW. In that book he mentioned how much it meant to him to be greeted by two tiger friends and to catch up on wha had been going on back home while was absent.

Years later our son, who lives in Asheville, and a bunch of his Clemson buddies had annual camping get togethers with their families in the NC mountains, My wife and I participated one year, During the introductions one guy identified himself as --- Funchess. Turned out he was Bill's son. I related my story to him and Bill and I reconnected. Soon after that our extended family had a family reunion at a huge house on Lake Keowee. Bill and his wife came up for lunch one day and we spent the entire afternoon sitting on the porch telling war stories, My three older brothers, who were all in combat during WW II, were there. What a wonderful conversation.

Bill was a true patriot and hero for his sacrifices for our country and his continued public service at Clemson.

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Another Tiger hero passed

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