As we celebrate Veterans Day this week, I felt it appropriate to share the story of Walter “Waddy” Young. A wrestler from Ponca City, and later OU, who also played football for the Sooners and Wildcats and was eventually drafted into the NFL. He gave up his NFL career to join the Army Air Corps during World War Two and was killed in 1945.
Patrick Kelley shares Waddy’s story in his upcoming book “The Undertold Story of Kansas State Wrestling” which is expected to be released this summer.
“Walter R. “Waddy” Young of Ponca City and the University of Oklahoma was a wrestler was selected in the third round of the NFL draft and played two seasons with the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1941, he voluntarily gave up his NFL career to join the United States Army Air Corps. He was eventually given the responsibility of piloting a B-29 Superfortress.
Beloved by his crew, they named themselves and the craft “Waddy’s Wagon.” Instead of depicting a scantily clad woman on the bomber’s nose, as was common, a caricature of the crew was painted on Waddy’s B-29. After a successful air raid over Tokyo in late 1944, a picture of the crew reenacting the painting with the plane in the background ran in newspapers across the country.
When returning from a mission in January 1945, Waddy became aware of a fellow
bomber who was caught in a Kamikaze attack. He turned Waddy’s Wagon around and flew into enemy fire to protect the plane and return both safely to base. Instead, the planes collided and crashed into the sea.
The photo of Waddy’s Wagon, plane, and crew was reprinted in the April 1945 edition of
National Geographic. The craft is also seen in a government film from 1945, Target Tokyo.
Young accumulated approximately 9000 combat hours with missions in the Pacific and
European Theaters. Waddy and crew were officially declared Killed in Action on January 10,
1946. The 29-year-old Ponca City native left behind a wife, Maxine (Moody). Young was
awarded the Air Medal and Purple Heart. He is memorialized at the Tablets of the Missing at
Honolulu Memorial, Honolulu, Hawaii”
