In high school he was most popular among both teachers and pupils, receiving the medal for Best All Round Boy in school; at West Point he was a member of Fishing Club, Boxing, and Pistol Marksman, attained the high rank of Cadet Captain, was on the Board of Governors, First Class Club, and also held the honor of “Mule Rider.” His friends among the cadets — and they were legion — called him “Willie B.,’ and men give nicknames only to those they love. After graduation he entered the service of the United States Army as a second lieutenant. Choosing the Infantry; training at Fort Benning, Georgia, he was promoted to first lieutenant and stationed at Fort Jackson, Columbia, whence he was sent overseas in October 1944; on 16 December 1944 in the Battle of the Bulge, he met a soldier’s death in action.

Such is the all too brief story! It tells so little — is so cold and formal. Behind the facts, to those of us who knew and loved him, is the true reality — the fresh young life, the courage that knew no shadow of turning, the honor that never failed, the ability that gave promise of so much — “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend.” I who write these lines knew him “from his youth up.” I was his Superintendent of Schools for eleven years, from his first grade through high school in a small town. I know what I do speak. I never saw him do an ungenerous act or fail in that courtesy and courage that marks a gentleman, a gentleman born and a gentleman bred. William Boyce Brice came of good South Carolina ancestry. He fought, therefore, as a matter of course. He was “true to the instincts of his birth, and faithful to the teachings of his father.” In “the short, sharp, agony of the Field,” in a foreign land he sealed his loyalty with his life.

— G.F. Patton