Biography
In Ringsted, Iowa, on November 30, 1919, in the tenth year of Joseph and Marthilda (Mar- tilda) Peterson’s marriage, they became the parents of their fourth son and fifth child, Sidney Wilson Peterson. He joined older brothers James and George and his older sister, Inas. The first born was a son that died at six months old from cholera. But he wasn’t the youngest child for long - he soon became a doting older brother to his younger sister, Mildred. Sid was steeped in his Danish heritage – his mother was born there and his father was also of Danish ancestry.
As a child, Sid was known for the continual love and kindness he showed to family members. At one moment during his childhood, he gave his grandmother a “bear hug” so hard that he cracked her ribs! From then on, she would remark, "Every time I breathe and my ribs hurt, I remember how good it felt to be hugged (by him).” In another childhood episode, he had a near-death experience with what was thought to be a rattlesnake. He was sitting next to a grate in the floor, playing. His grandmother looked over and saw a rattlesnake peeking through the grate and immediately called on her husband to grab Sidney and dispose of the snake.
Sid attended Ringsted High School before moving to Chicago to spend time with his mother and brother, both of whom had moved to Illinois to pursue better paying job opportunities. Sid’s father had been a banker in Ringsted but the bank failed during the Great Depression.
As Sidney grew older, he decided to follow in the footsteps of his older brothers. His oldest brother, James had moved to Chicago as a young man to work in the steel mills. Sid saw this as an opportunity and decided to follow James to the Windy City where he also got a job in the steel mills, working with his brother. After work, the two were known to practice boxing together at a local boxing gym run by the famous Johnny Calhoun.
In the late 1930s, Sid left Chicago to pursue higher education. During the 1937-38 school year he was enrolled at Iowa State. There, Sid found a passion in the natural world, deciding to major in forestry. While on campus, he was active in the Forestry Club and the Military Department’s Trumpet and Drum Corps. In January 1940, Sid enrolled at Estherville Junior College, in Estherville, Iowa. However - though he had discovered courses that interested him while in college, he decided it wasn’t quite the right thing and he left school to move back to Chicago.
With the onset of World War II, the brothers parted, with James going to Navy Pier Great Lakes to train for the Navy Coast Guard. Sid’s brother George signed on with the Army and Sidney headed to Randolph Field in Texas to train as a pilot, entering the service on February 3, 1942. During his time in Texas, Sid fell in love with a woman who was a member of the USO – the support organization for military service members and their families. Sid made a promise to his sweetheart that when he was finished with his tour of duty, they would be married.
After his training in Texas, Sidney traveled the world in the service of his country. At one time, he flew from Brazil to Morocco, resulting in a pass over the equator. Because he and the other members of his flight crew were from small towns and had never flown over the equator, they declared they needed to remember the moment. As they passed over this strategic line, every crew member signed a dollar bill - called a Snorkel – as a souvenir. There are no other records of a flight crew signing a dollar bill as an equatorial memento, leading us to believe that Sid’s crew may have been the first and only one to invent this ritual.
Sid was eventually stationed in England. During his service, Sidney piloted a bomber on more than 50 missions. One of his missions was recorded in the Waterloo Daily Courier on September 1, 1943. The report stated that on August 31st, 1943, he flew the “Liberty Belle,” a Marauder bomber, on a mission that bombed the huge Bethune chemical plant in Northern France.
In May 1944, Allied forces were preparing for the large-scale invasion of Normandy, France, code-named "Operation Overlord" or "D-Day." It would take place on June 6th, 1944. This marked the beginning of the liberation of France from German occupation and was the culmination of months of planning and buildup along the English Channel, with troops and supplies being amassed in anticipation of the cross-channel attack. Allied forces were actively training, assembling troops, and preparing naval and air support for the upcoming invasion of Normandy.
The Allied command was finalizing details, including the designated landing beaches in Normandy and conducting bombing raids on German positions in France to disrupt their defenses, supply lines and logistics. The German military, under Field Marshal Rommel, was fortifying the French coastline with coastal defenses, known as the Atlantic Wall, to try and repel the Allied invasion.
I have already mentioned Sid’s kindhearted nature. On the day he went missing, this kindheartedness was the cause of his downfall. On May 28, 1944, he was supposed to be finished with his tour of duty. He was headed home to reunite with his family after being stationed in England for over a year serving the Allied cause. But that day, one of his Air Corps friends was feeling ill and could not make his scheduled flight. Sid decided to take that flight before heading home. It was his 60th mission.
On May 28, 1944, the flight took off from the US Army Air Corps Base in England at the RAF’s Stansted Mountfitchet (Mount-fitch-it) field, northeast of London. The assigned bombing target was a railroad bridge in Saint-Germain, northwest of central Paris – part of the Allied push to disrupt German supply lines. Sid was aboard a B-26B Marauder. During the flight, the crew drew German anti-aircraft fire. Hit by flak just before bombs-away, the B-26 went into a dive with one engine on fire. The bail out alarm was immediately sounded. Despite their efforts to escape, three crew members including Sidney perished and two survived but were taken prisoners of war. Sid was declared missing after this encounter and was declared dead six months later. The two prisoners of war were eventually released and made it back to the United States after the war ended.
Sidney’s promise to his USO lady love was not to be fulfilled.
After his passing, Sidney Peterson was honored with numerous medals and awards, including the prestigious Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal with a notable TEN oak leaf clusters and a Purple Heart. The Distinguished Flying Cross is awarded for heroism or extraordinary achievement during aerial flight. The Air Medal is awarded to U.S. personnel for meritorious achievements while participating in aerial flight. The oak leaf cluster decoration that is added to a medal indicates that a service member has received that medal more than once. Given these recognitions, it’s obvious that Sidney served with bravery and distinction.
In Sid’s hometown of Ringsted, Iowa, his legacy lives on every Memorial Day along with those of the other hometown boys who gave their lives in service. The town commissions a pilot to fly the casket flags of Ringsted’s deceased service members in a stirring airborne tribute of thanks.