HomeMy WebLinkAboutC.B."Buddy" McGown, Brazos Valley Heroes
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One in a series of tributes to members of "The Greatest
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Generation" who served our country during World War II
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By Bill Youngkin
Special to The Eagle
observer. They told me they did not want pilots who
could already fly, they wanted to teach them to fly the
military way. I had now lost my chance to fly and my
chance to go to OCS."
McGown was assigned to the 33rd Mechanized
Calvary Reconnaissance Squadron of the 20th
Armored Division. Because of his previous training
and scores, he was assigned a jeep with a radio and ..~
30-caliber machine gun. They embarked from Camp i
Miles Standish through New York Harbor and boarded' . .
the USS Brazil.
"You always worry about how you will react to I
combat situations your first time. Mine occurred on
a road with another reconnaissance jeep that wdasi
ambushed by some German soldiers located in woo s ~
near the road. Everyone stopped and jumped out into
a ditch but I climbed behind our machine gun that was ...
mounted on my jeep and returned fire. I did what I had'i
been trained to do." i
When the war ended McGown was at Salsburg, .,!!:!.'.....
Austria where he remained until he was shipped home
and then sent to CaUfornia to train for the invasion of
Japan. He was discharged at Camp Fannin near Tyler Iii
in 1946. '
He re-entered Sam Houston and received his degree -
In music. He came to Bryan as the band director of
Stephen F. Austin in 194B, He served as the principal
at Bonham and Henderson elementary schools
and retired from the school district in 19B6.
In 1976 he took up flying again and hasn't
stopped.
"My time in the Army changed me, It made me into
a man. It seems that today it takes young men 10
years after they are grown to become a man. We did it
in less tha,p six months,"
C,B. "Buddy" McGown's name can be found on the
Brazos Valley Veteran's Memorial. If you know of a
World War II veteran whose story needs to be told
or woJild like to add someone's name to the Brazos
Valley Veteran's Memorial, contact Bill Youngkin at
(979) 260-7030. ,
If attitude and the approach you take to life is a
factor in staying younger longer, then C.B. "Buddy"
McGown of Bryan is getting younger - not older. At
B1, he remains a sports car enthusiast and pilots his
own plane.
"I don't race sports cars anymore but I've told my
wife that when I get too old to fly, I'm going back to
sports cars. I've promised her that if I still don't think
I'm too old to fly by age 90, I will sell the plane .then."
, McGown vias born and grew up in Mexia, Texas
where he graduated from high school in the spring
of 1941,
"I knew I would probably be drafted someday and I
wanted to fly in the military, To enable me to do that I
enrolled in pilot training that summer, I also enrolled at
Sam Houston State that fall. With war being declared,
it was now a certainty I would be drafted so I volun-
teered for the Army Air Corps. I took all the tests and
passed with flying colors but when I took my eyesight
exam, my vision was determined to be 20/30 and they
were requiring that all pilots have 20/20 vision."
He then was reassigned to Camp Butner, North
Carolina for basic training in an anti-tank company,
After basic and radio operator's school, he was told he
was being sent to Officers Candidate's School.
"While I wasin the office, I noticed a,bulletin that
said the Air Force had a need for pilots and had low-
ered the vision requirements to 20/30, I turned down
the opportunity for OCS and volunteered for the pilot
program,"
He was accepted for the program and sent to
George Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee for
pre-flight training,
"Our speaker at the graduation ceremony said, 'I
have good and bad news for you - congratulationS
on graduating but 'the Air Force no longer has a need
for pilots so you will be returned to ground force
duty.' I told them I could already fly and volunteered
to be a liaison pilot of a light plane for an artillery