Pettus, William B. (William Bacon), 1880-

President, College of Chinese Studies, Peking, 1916-1945.

Biographical/Historical Note

President, College of Chinese Studies, Peking, 1916-1945.

William Winston Pettus: appointed professor of surgery at Hsiang-Ya Hospital in Changsha, Hunan, 1940, where he remained until the Japanese occupation in 1942; returned to U.S. to continue studies in surgery; returned to China to work in the relocated Hsiang-Ya Hospital, 1944-1945.

William Winston Pettus, missionary-surgeon, was born in Shanghai, China, on February 25, 1912. He entered Yale College in 1929 after attending the American School in Peking where his father, William Bacon Pettus, was President of the College of Chinese Studies. After completing his undergraduate work in 1933, he enrolled at the Yale Medical School where he received the M.D. degree in 1937. During the same year he married Maude Miller of Inwood, West Virginia, and began a residency in surgery at the Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.

In 1940, after completing his residency, Pettus received a Yale-in-China Association appointment as Professor of Surgery at Hsiang-Ya Hospital in Changsha, Hunan. He worked at Changsha until January 1942, when the Japanese Army captured the city. After a brief occupation the Japanese retreated, and Pettus was among the first to return to Changsha. It was largely due to his efforts that medical work was begun again in the seriously damaged hospital.

During the spring of 1943, Pettus returned to the United States for advanced study in surgery. In October 1944 he resumed his work at Hsiang-Ya, then located at Kweiyang, Kweichow, and later at Chungking.

In September 1945 Pettus flew into Changsha before the Japanese relinquished control of the city and began working to re-open the Yale-in-China medical facilities. He was killed when the airplane he was piloting crashed at Hwangping, Kweichow, on November 18, 1945.

For further information see the biography of Pettus, Dauntless Adventurer, by Edward H. Hume (New Haven, 1952).