Talk:Royce Williams

Brief review

I did a quick look-over and I share the concern you raised about having too few sources, though it seems like the story will gain a lot more momentum and have more independent reports as they try to push his medal through Congress. The larger issue right now is that the article as it stands mostly a close paraphrase of Kragen 2022. That's an issue that can often happen when you want to take a lot of content from one source in an accurate way, and do not have enough supporting sources to generalize the phrasing in your own words. To mitigate this, at least until more sources come about, you can focus on the content that is reported both in Kragen and the Times that you can then put in more general wording. To expand from there, I would suggest looking at adding one attributable fact at a time, rather than the newspaper's particular phrasing (which is important for the newspaper to convey tone, but it is also something that cannot be directly attributed in a citation so we can't really use it except with direct quotation). If you do want to take a direct quotation from Kragen, I don't think any of the quotes from Williams himself are particularly great for an encyclopedia article (news-features are a completely different style of writing); the only part that could be encyclopedic as a quotation in my opinion is where Lewandowski talks about the duration of the dogfight and that it's "beyond imagining".

One important source in the meantime for supplementary content is Seidov's book, if you can find a copy or translation. I imagine that dogfight is only one page at most, but that can be quite a lot if it's something interesting to quote from. SamuelRiv (talk) 04:19, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments and edits, SamuelRiv. I did find one more article in a source that I consider reliable: Task and Purpose. I will rework the article to include their information, particularly about the battle itself, and I will cite them as an additional source. -- MelanieN (talk) 17:11, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

I also found a book with some good quotes, and added that. I think it probably has enough factual references now. But I'd still like to see the standard things like infobox and medals added. -- MelanieN (talk) 00:09, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

I think I will change the article title to Royce Williams. His full name is given as E. Royce Williams, Jr., but sources mostly use just Royce Williams. -- MelanieN (talk) 23:08, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Seidov's book describes it this way (https://translate.google.com/ was used):

In November, a serious incident occurred involving Soviet pilots from a Soviet Air Force unit not assigned to the 64th Fighter Aviation Corps: on November 18, a US Navy carrier battle group consisting of the aircraft carriers USS Oriskany and USS Princeton approached the Soviet-Korean border in the Sea of ​​Japan near the North Korean port of Najin. Four MiG-15s from the 781st Fighter Aviation Regiment of the 165th Fighter Aviation Airborne Division, under the command of Captain N.M. Belyakov, took off from the Soviet border airfield in Unashi, Primorye (south of Vladivostok) to patrol the area where the US ships had been detected. Not far from the American squadron in neutral waters, our fighters were unexpectedly attacked by a flight of four F9F-5 Panther carrier-based fighters from Squadron VF-781, which had taken off from the aircraft carrier Oriskany. In a surprise attack, the Panthers disrupted the MiG formation and shot down Senior Lieutenant Pakhomkin's aircraft. He and his leading Senior Lieutenant Pushkarev made a sharp turn to escape the attack and flee the battle area. However, only Senior Lieutenant Pushkarev's aircraft returned to Unashi airfield, while Vladimir Ivanovich Pakhomkin's plane did not reach shore (its fuel tank was punctured). It crashed into the sea near Cape Lev and sank, killing the pilot. The pair of Captain Nikolai Mikhailovich {549} Belyakov and his wingman, Senior Lieutenant Alexander Ivanovich Vandaev, were unable to escape the clutches of a group of Panthers (four more Panthers from Squadron VF-721 and four F2N-2 Benshi fighters from Squadron VF-11 arrived a little later) and, fighting heroically, perished in this battle—shot down by Lieutenants I.D. Middleton and E.R. Williams from Squadron VF-781. According to their own data, the Americans shot down one Panther in this battle. Both sides exchanged notes of protest, and then the incident was long forgotten, and all data related to it was classified. Only 40 years later did the first information about the incident, which occurred on November 18, 1952, appear in the press.

From this, one can conclude that all claims about Soviet fighters attacking first and four shot down by one American pilot are blatant lies and nothing more than American military propaganda. ~2026-33434-26 (talk) 19:33, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

I notice the Navy Cross is no longer shown or listed under Captain Royce’s current decorations. I assume this is because the Medal of Honor replaced his Navy Cross, rather than being added to his decorations. This should be confirmed and, if so, explained in the article. Embram (talk) 17:49, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by 97198 (talk) 01:35, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that after U.S. Navy pilot Royce Williams engaged in a solo dogfight with seven Soviet MiG-15s during the Korean War, he was ordered never to tell anyone about it? Source: Williams was informed by Navy Adm. Robert Briscoe, commander of Naval Forces Far East, that while it was confirmed he had shot down three and possibly four MiGs, he was not to discuss the engagement with anyone, ever. 
  • ALT1: ... that Navy pilot Royce Williams is credited with the longest dogfight in U.S. Navy history? Source: Lewandowski said Williams’ air battle is now known as the longest dogfight in Naval history.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Michael Phillips (historian)
  • Comment: Question: should "dogfight" be wikilinked, or can we assume people know what it means?

Moved to mainspace by MelanieN (talk). Self-nominated at 18:03, 20 July 2022 (UTC).

General eligibility:

• New enough:
• Long enough:
• Other problems:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Both main and ALT1 check out. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 08:39, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the review, Hawkeye. But a QPQ was done. Noted above, right under ALT1: Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Michael Phillips (historian)

I made the same mistake recently when I did a review. I think they have put the QPQ report in a position where it is easy to overlook. -- MelanieN (talk) 20:03, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

My apologies. Good to go. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:26, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

WW 2?

As he was qualified military pilot in early August of 1945 well before the surrender of Japan on September 2 1945. He should be listed as a WW 2 veteran. if you want to quibble and say he never saw combat you could do that. Still, he is listed as a WW2 veteran in everything that matters. ~2025-43618-79 (talk) 15:51, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

Shot down 6 enemy Russian planes

According to Russian records only one plane returned to base. As seven planes took off in the patrol, and one returned that means six planes were shot down in the action not just the four he saw hit the ground. the two he reported damaged never returned to base. ~2025-43618-79 (talk) 06:45, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

According to Russian data, upon the appearance of the American aircraft carriers, four Soviet fighters, not seven, were dispatched to indicate their presence, and they were forbidden to open fire. The Americans attacked first, taking the Soviet pilots by surprise. The Royce Williams damaged only one Soviet fighter and was itself hit by a 37mm shell.

All the stories about him shooting down four Soviet MiGs are nothing more than American war propaganda. ~2026-33434-26 (talk) 19:54, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

Request: add citation to support the statement below

Captain Royce Williams dictated his life story to author W. Craig Reed for publishing in the book The 7 Secrets of Neuron Leadership (Wiley, 2018, ISBN: 978-1-119-42824-4), the only book in print with Royce’s full biographical life story. Reed lives near Royce and spent many nights on his balcony listening to his incredible “sea stories.” Royce notes that President Eisenhower convinced him to switch from bourbon to scotch, however, Reed introduced Royce to Monkey Shoulder scotch, which is now the only drink he prefers. Wcraigreed (talk) 19:33, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

Defunct link

The hyperlink is defunct in the footnote that is presently footnote 10, "Lendon, Brad (20 January 2023). "US pilot shot down four Soviet MiGs in 30 minutes -- and kept it a secret for 50 years". CNN. Retrieved 20 January 2023."

January 21, 2023, Internet Archive of CNN article~2026-13402-45 (talk) 05:30, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

Last living living Medal of honor winner who had service in WW2

Last service member who won the medal who had WW2 service, ~2026-26847-57 (talk) 06:30, 3 May 2026 (UTC)