Before Tom Landry was one of the most famous coaches for the Dallas Cowboys, he was on the field for both the New York Giants and the New York Yankees. And before that, he served in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II. According to Lone Star Flight Museum, he flew 30 combat missions — and wasn’t the only one of his family to do so.
His beloved older brother, Robert, got there first — and died over the North Atlantic in 1942. A little over a year later, Landry was drafted, went through basic training, then became a pilot just like his brother. And, just like his brother, he stepped into the cockpit of the B-17.
The 19-year-old Landry was sent to England and immediately dispatched on bombing runs into Germany. His first target was an oil refinery in Merseburg, defended by around 600 anti-aircraft guns. Landry later recalled (via HistoryNet): “I never saw anything like that. When we got there, it was just a cloud of black smoke from flak as you headed into the target. … It was like flying inside a thundercloud.”
That run alone was 12 hours in the air, and there were other, even more eventful ones — like their crash-landing in France, which everyone walked away from simply because the plane was so out of fuel, there was nothing left to explode — and missions over the Battle of the Bulge. Landry returned home, married his college sweetheart, and became one of the biggest names in NFL history.
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