PEEL, ROBERT DELAYNEY Name: Robert Delayney Peel Rank/Branch: United States Air Force/O3 Unit: 333 TFS Date of Birth: 16 June 1939 Memphis TN Home City of Record: Broadlands IL Date of Loss: 31 May 1965 Country of Loss: North Vietnam Loss Coordinates: 194100 North 1054600 East Status (in 1973): Returnee Category: Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: F105D Missions: 6 NVN 15 Total Other Personnel in Incident: none Refno: Source: Compiled by P.O.W. NETWORK from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews. REMARKS: 730212 RELEASED BY DRV SOURCE: WE CAME HOME copyright 1977 Captain and Mrs. Frederic A Wyatt (USNR Ret), Barbara Powers Wyatt, Editor P.O.W. Publications, 10250 Moorpark St., Toluca Lake, CA 91602 Text is reproduced as found in the original publication (including date and spelling errors). ROBERT D. PEEL Major - United States Air Force Shot Down: May 31, 1965 Released: February 12, 1973 Major Robert Peel, holding colors which he said would never run. This faith in his flag, his country, his President and his God, helped sustain him, and most of his fellow POWs through the long years of captivity. More concretely, this faith helped the POWs to maintain a sense of humor that carried them through dark hours of torture. When doors would slam, and tramping feet would nofity each prisoner that some new punishment was at hand, one of them came up with the statement, "If you don't like it, you shouldn't have joined." This wouid ease tension, and help us face with a smile whatever was in store for us. Another example is the ability it gives you to laugh for a while during torture. This is something the captors in North Vietnam could never understand. During beatings or other forms of torture you would be told to say you are a criminal, you are a criminal. You answer, "You are a criminal, you are a criminal," and he blows his stack. How can you make fun of him when you are powerless to resist anything he wants to do to you? It helped our morale, as on the Hanoi march, many heads were "bloody but unbowed." Major Peel of the United States Air Force, was born in Memphis, Tennessee on June 16th, 1939. He has two brothers, one, Fred W. Peel, jr., a bomber pilot in Korea, for many years a pilot on the Dew Line, and a retired Lt. Col., USAF. The other, Major R. Dudley Peel, USAF. is a security officer, who, with his family is on a tour of duty in Spain. Major Peel's mother is a Memphian, and his Dad, from England, flew with the R.A.F. in World War I. Major Peel graduated from Castle Heights Military Academy, where he was co-captain of the swimming team, and was a Mid-South Swimming Champion. He went to the University of the South, where he joined the Phi Delta Theta Fraternity. He transferred to Ole Miss, in order to study engineering, but left at the beginning of his junior year to enter Cadet Air Force Training. He graduated from pilot training in the Class of 1961, and received the "Outstanding Flying Award" in his class. Major Peel's first love is flying and he hopes to resume his career in the Air Force very soon, though obtaining a college degree is very important to him. He is unmarried, possibly because he was a POW from May 1965 till February 1973. The love and affection shown him in his homecoming, and the concern and prayers expressed in the hundreds of letters from the U.S. and abroad have touched him deeply. He joins with other POW's in saying, "God Bless America." December 1996 Robert Peel retired from the United States Air Force as a Lt. Colonel. He and his wife Chris reside in Texas.