Wiley Lee Dixon Jr. was born on December 13, 1917, in Kentucky. He was the son of Wiley Lee Dixon and Gazelle Toombs Dixon. He was married to Ida Elizabeth Wilson Posey Wood. He earned the Harvard Award for scholarship, leadership, and citizenship at Dallas High School and later studied at Alamo Heights High and Westmoreland College in San Antonio. In 1935, he entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point through a presidential appointment from Fort Sam Houston. Upon graduating in June 1939, Wiley was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Infantry and assigned to the 1st Battalion, 2nd Infantry at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, as executive officer of a rifle company. After a transfer to Fort McClellan, Alabama, with the newly activated 5th Infantry Division, he threw himself into an intense training schedule across the southern states, participating in the Louisiana maneuvers with distinction.

Returning to Fort Sheridan after the maneuvers, he later commanded the battalion’s heavy weapons company. In April 1941, he received orders for overseas duty in the Philippines, his final posting. Stationed with the 12th Military Police Company at Fort McKinley, he was later transferred to Second Headquarters on Bataan after war broke out. His company earned two citations for gallantry before surrendering to the Japanese on April 8, 1942.

Declared missing for eleven months, Wiley was later confirmed to be a prisoner of war. In September 1943, his family received a card indicating he was interned in Japan, but soon after, the War Department reported his death from pneumonia on January 20, 1943, at Zentsuji POW Camp. He is now buried in the Fernwood Cemetery, Henderson, Henderson County, Kentucky, USA.

Source of information: www.findagrave.com, alumni.westpointaog.org