William J. Dunbar was born on December 1, 1924 in New York. He resided in Cuyahoga County, Ohio prior to the war. He enlisted in the Army on April 3, 1943 at Camp Perry, Lacarne, Ohio. He was noted as being Single, without dependents. William served as a Private, 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion, U.S. Army during World War II. He was Killed in Action on December 17, 1944 at the age of 20 and is now buried in the Lakeview Cemetery, Penn Yan, Yates County, New York, USA. He was one of the victims of Malmedy massacre when German SS soldiers of the 1st Panzer Division captured over 100 American soldiers at Baugnez Crossroads outside Malmedy, Belgium, on 17 December 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge and, under orders to take no prisoners, placed them in an open field and then machine gunned them. When the machine guns stopped, the SS went through the field where some victims were still alive and systematically finished them off with pistols at short range leaving 84 soldiers dead when they had finished. Fortunately, when the machine guns first started shooting, a number of soldiers ran and some managed to escape and tell the story of how the Germans had treated the others who had not survived.