The URL can be used to link to this page

Home My WebLink AboutW. T. Taylor Riedel, Brazos Valley Heroes — ..] . .. it d X a H of ', 5 z Z � . ' Y � : a .v '" a 4. .. E One in a series of tr!1)uIeS in rr1+ t i "irs of " ' e Greatest k . Generation" who served our country during World War 1I . °� . :§ , :7 3 . A D tiecicrl "- V; '� r When W. T. Taylor Riedel enrolled at Texas A &M On Riedel's 32nd mission, on a bombing run to ,. in the fall of 1940 from Yorktown, Texas, he had no Leipzig, Germany, his plane was hit by 88mm anti air idea his college years would be cut short by a war. craft fire. "A &M was a different place then. I was in the "The 11 went through my left wing and explotl Field Artillery Band and the band had about 200 peo- ed above us. If it had exploded when it hit our wing, ple with a total of 3 cars." we wouldn't have made it. Thankfully, all it did was But, like most attending A &M then, when the rupture our gas lines as it went through the wing and ,; war started, Riedel volunteered for cadet aviation damage our prop control. As a result, the plane start training in 1942 and started his formal flight training ed wind milling and caught on fire so we had to bail ! in 1943. out. We were at 25,000 feet when the crew bailed out "I was in flight school with a contingent of and then I jumped. We had been instructed to wait a : University of Texas people and one of the guys vol- while before pulling the rip cord but I bet I had just � unteered that he was Phi Beta Kappa and as a result, barely cleared the plane when I pulled it." he would surely be chosen as a pilot and told me that "We all landed safely in Belgium which we had < I would probably be chosen as a bombardier. I was control over and we were picked up by an American selected as a pilot, he was selected as a navigator, GI in a jeep." which proved that you didn't have to be a Phi Beta After Riedel's 35th mission, he was sent to the Kappa to be a pilot at that time." U. S. west coast to prepare to go to the Pacific when In 1944 he arrived in Luden, England where he the war ended. He returned to A &M, married and began flying B -17's on bombing runs, primarily over lived with his wife on the 4th floor of Walton Hall until Germany. A typical mission meant waking at 2:00 he finished in the summer of 1946. He taught school a.m. to have breakfast and a mission briefing, check in Mississippi but soon returned to teach at A &M '< out your plane and take off by 5:00 a.m. They took Consolidated which had less that 100 students then off 12 planes at a time and would rendezvous at a He became a principal and then superintendent for 19 designated location with the other bombers and years, retiring in 1974. In 1974 he became a trust would often conduct a bomb run of 6 to 9 hours with officer /vice president at University National Bank 300 to 500 other planes. ' until his second retirement in 1994. "When I first got there, a bombing crew was "When President Bush was doing his parachute able to retire after 25 missions. That was because jump this year, someone asked me if I would like to , earlier in the war, the German fighter planes were make a jump also. I told them, I had my one jump causing large losses but on my missions, we only and I sure as heck didn't want to do it again." <I encountered German fighters on probably 10 mis- Taylor Riedel's name can be found on the sions. What we had to deal with mostly was anti air- Brazos Valley Veterans Park Memorial. For more craft fire." information, to make a contribution, or to nominate a itit "Before the war was over, the Germans brought veteran, contact the BVVM at jets into the war and they were so fast that they were www.veterans- memorial.org, or Bit Youngkin at a concern. They would fly under the formation and 260 -7030. ia would then fly straight up and pick off the last plane in the formation. Thankfully that occurred just before the war ended:"