Private First Class
U.S. Army Air Forces
Melbourne R. Rieke, son of Henry William and Edna Mae Hoelzen Melbourne, was born on 17 January 1920 in Burlington, Iowa.
He graduated from Burlington High School on 2 June 1938.
Melbourne married the former Zatha Jean Schaefer on 2 February 1941 in Burlington.
Prior to his induction in February 1944, Melbourne was the Chicago manager of the Schreiber Trucking Company. After his basic training, Melbourne was assigned to the Ardmore Army Airfield in Ardmore, Oklahoma for flight training on a B-17. On the morning of 24 September 1944, the number one engine on Melbourne’s aircraft blew a cylinder at around 2,000 feet on the downwind leg of the landing pattern and caught fire. Three of the nine who parachuted died in their survival attempt. The engineer accidentally dropped his chute overboard and exited the aircraft on the back of the co-pilot. When the co-pilot's chest chute opened, the engineer lost his grip and perished. The navigator's chute was only fastened on one side of the harness and failed to open properly. For some unknown reason, the top turret gunner was last to leave the aircraft at an altitude too low for the chute to fully open. At 11:30 a.m. the aircraft crashed nose first and exploded on impact, four miles north of Ardmore on the O. F. Kramer farm. Officers are usually the engineer and navigator on a B-17, therefore it’s assumed that Melbourne was the top turret gunner.
Melbourne was survived by his wife who was living in Ardmore; his parents; two brothers, Private First Class Raymond R. Rieke serving in the Aleutians, and Kenneth of Chicago; and two sisters, Lela Johnson of Burlington and Edith of Chicago.
Private First Class Melbourne R. Rieke, United States Army Air Forces, was buried in Burlington’s Aspen Grove Cemetery.
Source of information:
1. The Burlington Hawk-Eye Gazette, 25 September 1944, page 1.
2. Ardmore Army Air Field web site, http://www.brightok.net/~gsimmons/
3. Des Moines County Iowa Veterans Buried with Markers, compiled by the Des Moines County Genealogical Society, 1984.
4. 1938 Pathfinder Yearbook, Burlington High School, page 23.
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