[1] He served as an intelligence officer at a prisoner-of-war camp for Germans in Oklahoma[2] before joining the prosecution staff at the Borkum Island trial, a case involving the assault and execution of seven United States airmen.

Lyons spent the next year as part of the first group of Army lawyers tending to war crime investigations and trials in Europe.

Negotiations included the reconciliation of European concepts of justice with those of the United States, which sought to criminalize aggressive warfare as opposed to specific war crimes.

[6] As part of this agreement, Lyons and two other Army lawyers were chosen to serve on the prosecution staff of the 1945 Borkum Island trial in Ludwisburg, Germany.

[3] In the trial, 15 German defendants were accused of forcing 7 U.S. airmen to make an eight-mile "death march" across the island of Borkum, which ultimately resulted in their executions.