From an article in THE MESSENGER by Maurice Simmons

July/August 1998

    “I then walked to almost the far eastern end of the rows of headstones and I saw “Orvil Lawless, Army Air Corps.  I will never forget that August date in my life.

     I had been assigned to Davis-Monthan AFB, Tucson, Arizona, in April 1945.  I knew that Orvil was there training. I tried to look him up so we could visit.  Orvil was a crew member on a B-29 heavy bomber.  The B-29 was the largest bomber of its day and it was a B-29 that dropped the A-bomb on Japan.  The flight crews were flying night and day, preparing them for overseas duty.  Orvil was another De Leon boy who enlisted at Kelly Field with all the rest of us.  On that August day, I was being sent to Nebraska for our overseas training, and as I was checking out the base, I learned that a B-29 had gone down in the mountains during the night.  Little did I know that Orvil was a crew member on that plane.”

Orvil Lawless is buried in the De Leon Cemetery