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.

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