As a toddler, Bob had a bout with rheumatic fever which left him with heart problems. The doctor said no athletics for you. Bobby was allowed to go into the water and learned how to swim eventually as he grew stronger he became a distance swimmer then fancy diving. At Andover, Bob was the Captain of the ski team with jumping as his specialty. He led the effort to clear Boston Hill for the team’s slalom practice. Just for fun there were races at Suicide Six and others.
In college he took flying lessons, and then he saw an ad for Wing cigarettes contest offering a Piper Cub plane as first prize. Not a smoker himself he collected labels and won the first prize.
When the USA entered World War II, Bob joined the Army Air Force. With so much practice already, he became an excellent pilot, flying P-47 fighter planes.
From graduation in Texas he was sent to Quonset Point, RI awaiting assignment to Europe or Africa. At the same time in June of ’42, a German submarine hovered offshore and sent in a crew armed with gasoline bombs. Terrorism, in our country is not as recent as we tend to think. They spread out along the coast looking for planes and pilots about to be sent into war. Bob felt uneasy enough about his plane that day to try to exchange it. There was nothing visibly wrong and two other available anyway. He flew out over the ocean and his plane exploded. He had turned 25 only a few days before.
The German submarine crew was caught and executed.