William Thurman Carneal was born in Grahamville, KY, on 25 April 1920 and graduated from Heath High School (KY) in 1939. After graduation, he was employed at Anderson's Grocery in Grahamville.

Carneal was inducted into the U.S. Army on 13 October 1941. He received his basic training at Camp Wolters, TX, and was sent to Hawaii in Jan 1942.

On 7 July 1944, Private First Class Carneal was serving with the 105th Infantry Regiment, 27th Infantry Division, on the Japanese island of Saipan in the Pacific’s Northern Mariana Islands. On that day, the military believes that PFC Carneal was killed by a grenade blast during a suicide attack by the Japanese. He was reported Missing in Action and declared dead a year later.

In March 2013, Carneal's remains were believed to have been found with four others under more than 3 feet of clay. Belongings that included PFC Carneal's dog tags, belt buckle, poncho, American coins, and a 1939 Heath High School class ring, were recovered with the remains.

Keuntai, a Japanese nonprofit that searches for the bodies of Japanese soldiers killed in World War II, and members of the CNMI Historic Preservation, discovered Carneal's remains and turned them over to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command. Despite the evidence found with the remains, the military did not officially declare them to be Carneal's until December 2013, when DNA testing confirmed his identity.

Carneal's belongings will remain with his descendants, with the exception of a dog tag that will be given to the Veterans Museum in Wickliffe.

Although Carneal could have been buried at Arlington National Cemetery, the family decided he should be laid to rest with full military honors next to his sister, Ruth Anderson, at Palestine Cemetery in West Paducah, KY.