Longtime developer, Des Moines civic leader and philanthropist William C. “Bill” Knapp, 99, who served in World War II, will be laid to rest in the Iowa Veterans Cemetery he donated the bulk of the land to create.

Knapp, who died Saturday, Nov. 15, will be interred in a ceremony with full military honors at 11 a.m. Friday at the cemetery near his home in Van Meter.

Knapp served in the U.S. Navy during the Battle of Okinawa, the war’s last major battle in the Pacific. Enlisting with his parents' permission at age 17, he transported Marines ashore on a landing craft during the Okinawa landings amid kamikaze attacks.

Knapp will join Patrick Palmersheim, the former executive director of the Iowa Department of Veterans Affairs who founded the cemetery and was buried there after his death at

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