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Contact Info
Home Town Taylor, Texas
Last Address Dallas, Texas
Date of Passing Jun 06, 1964
Location of Interment Taylor City Cemetery - Taylor, Texas
He was the co-pilot in crew #5 on the Doolittle Raid. Earlier he had been the co-pilot of a B-25 that had spotted and sunk a Japanese submarine at the mouth of the Columbia River. Later he would command a B-25 unit in England, North Africa and the Mediterranean.
His DFC citation: Awarded for actions during World War II The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 2, 1926, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross to First Lieutenant (Air Corps) Ross Rodney Wilder, United States Army Air Forces, for extraordinary achievement as Co-Pilot of a B-25 Bomber of the 1st Special Aviation Project (Doolittle Raider Force), while participating in a highly destructive raid on the Japanese mainland on 18 April 1942. Lieutenant Wilder with 79 other officers and enlisted men volunteered for this mission knowing full well that the chances of survival were extremely remote, and executed his part in it with great skill and daring. This achievement reflects high credit on himself and the military service. Action Date: April 18, 1942 Service: Army Air Forces Rank: First Lieutenant Company: 1st Special Aviation Project Division: Doolittle Tokyo Raider Force
Crew #5 (Plane #40-2283, target Tokyo): 95th Bomb Sq. L-R: Lt. Eugene F. McGurl, navigator; Capt. David M. Jones, pilot; Lt. Denver V. Truelove, bombardier; Lt. Ross R. Wilder, copilot; Sgt. Joseph W. Manske, flight engineer/gunner. (U.S. Air Force photo)
World War II/China-India-Burma Theater/India-Burma Campaign (1942-45)
From Month/Year
April / 1942
To Month/Year
January / 1945
Description (India-Burma Campaign 2 April 1942 to 28 January 1945) China Burma India Theater (CBI) was an umbrella term, used by the United States military during World War II for the China and Southeast Asian or India-Burma (IBT) theaters. Operational command of Allied forces (including US forces) in the CBI was officially the responsibility of the Supreme Commanders for South East Asia or China. However: US forces in practice were usually overseen by General Joseph Stilwell, the Deputy Allied Commander in China; the term "CBI" was significant in logistical, material and personnel matters; it was and is commonly used within the US for these theaters.
Well-known US (or joint Allied) units in the CBI included the Chinese Expeditionary Force, the Flying Tigers, transport and bomber units flying the Hump, the 1st Air Commando Group, the engineers who built Ledo Road, and the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), popularly known as "Merrill's Marauders".
"We got a hell of a beating," Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell told the crowd of reporters in the Indian capital of New Delhi. It was May 1942, and the American general, who had only recently arrived in the Far East to assume the position of chief of staff to Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek, was chafing at failure in his first command in the field. Following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor the previous December, the Japanese had won victory after victory, extending their empire from Wake Island in the Pacific to Malaya and Singapore in Southeast Asia. When Stilwell had arrived in the embattled Chinese capital of Chungking in March, the Japanese were already driving into Burma, capturing the capital of Rangoon on 6 March. The American general took command of two Chinese divisions and, in cooperation with the British and Indians, tried to stem the Japanese onslaught. Defeated, he and his staff endured a rugged, 140-mile hike over jungle-covered mountains to India. By occupying Burma, the Japanese had not only gained access to vast resources of teak and rubber, but they had dosed the Burma Road, 700 miles of dirt highway that represented China's last overland link with the outside world. The reopening of an overland route to China would be the major American goal, indeed obsession, in the theater throughout the campaign.
Strategic Setting
The objective of restoring a land route to China originated in part in hard strategic considerations, specifically the need to keep China in the war to tie down Japanese troops and serve as a base for future operations against the Japanese home islands. But it also reflected an idealistic American view of China as a great power, capable of a major contribution, and the romantic image held by many Americans of China's heroic struggle against superior Japanese equipment and arms. For nearly three years the United States would thus push for a major effort to break the Japanese blockade, forward large quantities of lend-lease materials, and train the fledgling Chinese Army and Air Force.
