Captain W. S. Nye (more recently Major W. S. Nye, U.S.A) was born in Canton, Ohio. As a boy he moved with his parents to California and can remember when Hollywood was a barley field. Upon the entrance of the United States into the World War, he enlisted in the ambulance service. Soon, however, he received an appointment to West Point where he was graduated in 1920. Major Nye has seen service at Camp Knox, Kentucky; Camp Lewis, Washington; Schofield Barracks, Hawaii; Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Fort Sill, Oklahoma; and in Washington, D.C. He was stationed at Fort Sill in 1933, as a student in the advanced course of the Field Artillery School, when he began the researches in Indian history that led to the writing of Carbine and Lance.

A frequent contributor to the military journals and the author of many featured articles on western history, he is now editor of The Field Artillery Journal.