His body was brought to San Antonio, Texas, and his funeral services were held at 10:00 a.m.. on 26 March 1973 at St. Paul's Episcopal Church on Grayson Street. The services were conducted by Father John Fowler of St. Michael and All Angels of Tucson, Arizona. He is a friend of the family. The following is the eulogy given by him at the funeral services for Bill Gude.

"The death and last honors of the Church for one of its sons, and the burial of his body, are, of all times, not a time for shallow sentiment and comfort. There is comfort to be had, but it goes deep into grief. There is sentiment in every healthy human reaction to death, but it is the sentiment that comes from love and the suffering of love. The death of our dear husband and father and son and brother, William Gude, strikes everyone who has known him and loved him with grief and the deepest regret.

"The death of such a man, in the full pride of life, must be honestly seen as an event of tragedy and regret. We believe that God snatches victory out of tragedy, but that does not obscure the necessity to mourn decently and humanly the profound loss of so good a man. There is a triumph to death, because Christ has died and lives again, and men and women on earth die to go to Him. But in the death of a man who could expect many years of life more, there comes a long period of separation which has a bitterness it would he dishonest to deny. There are those of us who still need him, and we shall not have hire near us for a while-for some it will be a long while-until we go to Almighty God with him.

"The Church does not encourage us to dwell at length on the attributes of its people when we come to give them back to God. But I, for my part, cannot forebear to mention, for us all, certain of the traits of William Gude which make of his death a solemn occasion, even though we know that death cannot hold him. He was a man of the broadest interests and accomplishments -a man of more sides than most of us - creative art, music, literature, the technology of flight, friendship, unaffected human love for the people God gave him to love. He wore all of these utterly without affectation or self-consciousness. The attractions of his personality were immediate - but to know him better was to know more of what he brought to a friendship. If an old veteran may say so, he was the sort of humane gentleman that the United States military cannot afford to do without. There are few enough of him. For all of these things, we mourn his going, but we give him with confidence into the hands of God whom he loved and worshipped -and the Body of Whose only Son he received each week at the holy altar.

"The best things are not ended by death -generosity, beauty, love, friendship. That is why you and I have come here to do these things today for the soul, the honor, and the memory of William Gude. We plead the holy sacrifice of the death and resurrection of Christ for him-and we plead it for ourselves, so that we may take courage and comfort to go on without him for a while. I read the other day a passage from the diary of Sir Walter Scott, which he wrote at the death of someone he loved. I happened to read it on the day I heard of Bill Gude's death: `He is sentient and conscious of my emotions somewhere-how we cannot tell - yet would I not this moment renounce the mysterious yet certain hope that I shall see him in a better world, for all that this world can give me.' Thank God for the poets who know more about the human things than all of the philosophers. There was a book a poetry on Bill Gude's bedside table when he was killed. That's the kind of man he is"

Bill Gude was born at the old Post Hospital at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, on 17 June 1934. He enlisted on 22 August 1952 and the next year entered the United States Military Academy on 7 July 1953. When he graduated on 3 June 1957 he went into the Air Force, and among his many stations he served at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska from 6 October 1963 until 18 July 1966 and at Cam Rahn Air Base, Vietnam, where be flew the F4C from 27 December 1966 and 12 November 1967. His combat record shows, that he flew 186 aerial missions, 326 combat hours and 74 out-of-country missions.

Bill is survived by his wife Marilyn, daughter Lisa, son Warren, two brothers, Frederick and Daniel Gude, two nephews, one niece and by his parents, Colonel and Mrs. Elmer W. Gude of 224 Calumet Place, San Antonio, Tex 78209.