A Local Legend Remembered

Myrtle Beach residents are well acquainted with Farrow Parkway, the main thoroughfare through Market Common. As the 18th of April approaches, it is a good time to remember and honor its namesake: Billy Farrow of Darlington, SC. Lieutenant Farrow was one of the famous Doolittle Raiders that took the first offensive action of World War 2 by flying his B-25 bomber off the carrier Hornet to bomb Tokyo. This heroic mission took place on April 18, 1942, a few short months after Pearl Harbor.

This mission ended that same night in China, where the men involved either bailed out or crash landed. Unfortunately, Billy and several others were captured by the Japanese. They were later put on trial for unspecified charges, found guilty, and sentenced to death. A day before his execution, Billy composed a letter to his mother at home in Darlington. Seeking to comfort her about his own faith, he referred her to William Cullen Bryant’s poem Thanatopsis:

“So live, that when thy summons comes to join

The innumerable caravan, which moves

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take

His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,

Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.”

Bryant, unfortunately, didn’t elaborate on where his ‘unfaltering trust’ lay. Billy did, however, writing to his mother: “Don’t let this get you down. Just remember God will make everything right and that I’ll see you all again in the hereafter.” His faith in God was secure, allowing him to face what lay ahead with tranquility.

For his heroic actions, Billy Farrow was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and Purple Heart. In 1946 he was buried with honors in Arlington National Cemetery.

 (A more complete account of this and other amazing stories can be found in my book, Stories of Faith and Courage from World War II)