One-Mission Man

After enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1942 and training diligently for months as a bombardier, David Ririe spent only one day in combat. On his first and last mission, his plane is shot down. Crashing on a military reserve outside Rostock, Germany, he is immediately seized by German soldiers. He is held in Stalag Luft 1, an isolated prisoner of war camp for officers along the Baltic coast in northern Germany. For the next 13 months, Ririe struggles to survive Nazi brutality. In One Mission Man, Ririe describes the patriotism of small-town America as it prepares for war, the training to become a B-17 bombardier, and the harsh reality of combat and capture by the enemy. Living in overcrowded, unheated barracks surrounded by armed guards and barbed wire, he survives on a daily ration of thin turnip soup and coarse brown bread, suffers the misery of wet winter weather in inadequate clothing, copes with unrelenting boredom, and repeatedly digging tunnels unsuccessfully to escape. One-Mission Man is divided chronologically into four major sections: Ririe's youth growing up in rural Idaho, his training in the Army Air Corps, his year of incarceration and liberation from Stalag Luft 1, his struggle to return to normal life. He speaks in an open and candid way about such poignant experiences as struggling to become a B-17 bombardier, nearly starving with 9,000 POWs and heart-rending disappointment after failing numerous escape attempts. The conclusions he draws illustrate the harrowing chaos that existed during the world s most brutal war.

Born in the city settled by his paternal grandparents, Ririe grew up on the family farm in Ririe, Idaho. After the war he received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Agronomy at Brigham Young University and a Doctor of Philosophy Degree from Rutgers University in Soil Science and Plant Physiology. Now retired, Ririe was the Farm Advisor and County Director for Agricultural Extension Service in Monterey County for the University of California. He currently lives in Salinas, California.