William A. Darden

Col. William A. Darden (deceased) was a decorated U.S. Army serviceman who served in World War II and the Korean War.

Background
*Born in Nashville, Tennessee, March 29 1910. Died in Nashville, Tennessee, August 30 1993.

*Graduated from Nashville Central High on Rains Ave. in 1927, the first public high school in the county system (founded 1917, closed 1971) and one of only two public high schools in Nashville at the time..

*Attended Vanderbilt University from 1930-1931 where he joined the ROTC program and excelled on the track and debate teams.
*Graduated from Georgia Tech in 1935 where he was also in ROTC and on the debate team.

William Allen Darden, Jr., called Bill or Allen by friends, was the son of William Allen Darden, Sr. and Kathryn Bell Edwards. Allen Darden, Sr. worked at the Nashville Post Office on Broadway, now the Frist Center for the Arts.

Bill Darden spent his early years in East Nashville before the family moved to a small farm they called "Tick Hill" on Murfreesboro Rd. in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1921. From 1935-1942, Darden worked as a civil engineer in Nashville. He married Mary Elizabeth Ransom, the daughter of neighboring farmer William King Ransom, on January 7, 1939. Darden designed and built a modest stone house on the old Ransom farm on the corner of Una-Antioch Pike and Murfreesboro Road in Nashville where Ransom Place and Ransom Village now stand.

Military
When World War II broke out, Darden joined the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel where he served in the US Army Corps of Engineers.

Darden won the Legion of Merit Legionnaire Medal, the Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster, three Campaign Stars and an Assault Arrowhead, the Presidential Unit Citation the Royal Order of George I (Greece), and the Philippine Liberation Medal for his combat service in the Pacific Theater. He fought in Inchan, Japan and the Philippines.

Darden served as a corps staff officer in the Korean War in 1946.

He was military advisor air engineer, military mission to Greece from 1948-1951.

From 1952-1955 Darden served as Assistant District Engineer in Tullahoma, Tennessee.

He completed the Army's Strategic Intelligence School in 1956.

Darden also served as Army attaché to the US Embassy in New Delhi, India for several years in the late 1950s through 1960 where he was active in military intelligence. One of his assignments was to look for the rumored tunnel from Pakistan into India. His prowess with a rifle gave him the opportunity to scout the countryside as a big game hunter. His skill as a hunter made him the choice of villagers when a tiger attacked and killed a villager; Darden tracked, shot, and killed the tigress.

When Darden returned from India, he was posted to Fort Dix, New Jersey, for a year where he was promoted to full "bird" Colonel. Darden was next posted to the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. from 1960-1963 and at Yards and Docks from 1964-1965, While in Washington DC, he studied for his of Science degree from George Washington University which he completed in 1970.

Corps of Engineers
After he retired from the Army in 1965, he moved back to Nashville, TN where he rejoined the US Corps of Engineers as the Special Assistant to the U.S. Army District Engineer from 1966-1971 and the Executive Assistant to the U.S. Army District Engineer from 1972-1976. He served as President of the Society of American Value Engineers from 1974-1975. He was actively involved in the construction of Percy Priest Dam, Cordell Hull Dam and Lake Barkley.

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