Navy LCDR Billy Victor Gates was born in Henry County, Missouri on June 21, 1916, the son of Charles Parsons Gates (1883-1970) and Jessie Lee Menefee (1890-1970). His father supported the family his entire life as a Missouri farmer.
Following his graduation from State Teacher's College in Missouri, Billy enlisted in the US Navy on September 23, 1937 and entered flight training at NAS Pensacola. There, he met and courted Miss Ruby Nell Nellums (1917-), the daughter of William N. (1881-1930) and Nellie Ellen Fickling (1892-1971). Her father had been an engineer at a Muscogee sawmill and a railroad mechanic prior to his death in 1930. Ruby had graduated from Pensacola High School in the Class of 1936 and went to work as a saleswoman for the J. C. Penny company downtown. The young couple were married in Pensacola in June 1941, and Billy stayed on at NAS as in instructor in Squadron #2. Seven months later America was thrown into the chaos of World War II.
In April 1945, the USS Sargent Bay was assigned the mission of providing ground support, suppression of enemy artillery as well as select targets dictated by those on the ground. Billy was the commanding of officer of the ship's VC-83 squadron, which was a "composite" group made up of fighters and bombers. As the commanding officer, he was ordered to report to the operations center for briefing on April 22, 1945. He was given all the data on his bombing target for the day then prepared for takeoff. They launched early that morning and headed for Okinawa with Billy in the lead in his FM-2 Wildcat fighter. No one knows exactly what happened, but witnesses observed a mid-air collision over Okinawa and saw two planes falling. Since Billy never returned to the ship, it was assumed that one of them was him. His body was never recovered, although there is a memorial marker at Arlington National Cemetery and another at his family's plot at Urich Cemetery in Missouri.
In the meantime, a telegram was received by Ruby at her mother's house at 418 South Second Street where she was living with their two sons, Billy Jr. and Gerald. Like so many Pensacola wives before her, she was told that her husband went down over enemy held territory and there would most likely be no recovery. Ruby would go on with her life and three years later marry Navy CDR William Cornelius Mitchell (1920-1974) in 1948 in Pensacola, Florida.
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