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| Sgt. Gus Riecke was the flight engineer on the B-17 Jackie Ellen. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/68862249/august-riecke/photo |
August Riecke never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.
He was born on November 29, 1917 in Blur Lake, California. He was named after his paternal grandfather. His parents Frederick and Fannie were also both born in California. His father worked as a commercial fisherman and as a carpenter. His mother died in 1920 and his father died in 1930. August had an older sister (Gertie) and brother (Leslie). He lived with his brother and sister during the 1930s in Indian boarding schools (his mother was a Yurok Indian). He attended Chemawa Indian School in Salem, Oregon. August worked as a logger after finishing school.
He enlisted in the army on March 13, 1942. He became a tech sergeant and flight engineer in the 367th Bombardment Squadron, 306th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force which was equipped with B-17 Flying Fortresses.
Sgt. Riecke left the states in April 1943. He survived a crash landing in Iceland on April 17, 1943.
Arriving in England, he flew his first combat mission on May 21, 1943.
On October 14, 1943, Sgt. Riecke and the rest of the crew of Jackie Ellen were part of the tragic mission of 291 planes sent to bomb the ball bearing factories in Schweinfurt, Germany. It was the second mission to Schweinfurt. The first one was on August 17, 1943 on the one year anniversary of US heavy bomber operations from England and it was the furthest penetration into Germany so far. The 8th Air Force lost an above-average 36 of 230 planes on that first mission. The second mission would be worse.
While still in route to target, Jackie Ellen's formation was attacked by enemy fighters. Jackie Ellen sustained damage to its horizontal stabilizer and exploded, splitting apart at the radio room. It went down over Belgium. One of the crew survived to become a POW. Sgt. Riecke and the other eight were all killed. A total of 60 bombers were lost on the second Schweinfurt mission.
Gus's family was notified that he was Missing In Action. On October 5, 1950, five years after the end of WWII, his dog tags and remains were found in a Belgian village cemetery.
His grave is at Greenwood Cemetery in Arcata, California.
UPDATED 11/30/2017 - I circled the wrong person in the original crew photo. This has been corrected.
Thanks to everyone who has read and shared these profiles, last weekend the number of visits to this site exceeded 400,000. Visits are averaging 70,000 a month now. If you share these stories, I bet we could reach 500,000 before year end.
On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!
I created this video to explain why I started this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY.
Join the public Facebook group WW2 Fallen 100
Thanks to Sue Fox Moyer who learned from a relative of one of the men in the crew photo that I had misidentified Sgt. Rieke in my original post crew photo. This has been corrected.
ReplyDeleteThe correct spelling for the family name is "Riecke". Gus was born in Blue Lake, California. He attended Chemawa Indian School near Salem, Oregon with his brother, Leslie. He had one sister, Gertie. His home base was Thurleigh, England.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I made these changes to the blog. Would you like to see his story added to the www.storiesbehindthestars.org project? If so, contact me at don@storiesbehindthestars.org
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