Bernard Schriever

Germany was not yet at war with the United States, so Schriever's mother was able to obtain passage to New York for herself and her two sons aboard a Dutch liner, SS Noordam (1902), so that the family could be reunited.

She spoke English fluently, having lived in Lower Manhattan as a girl, but the two boys could only speak German.

Bernard Adolph "Bennie" Schriever (14 September 1910 – 20 June 2005) was a United States Air Force general who played a major role in the Air Force's space and ballistic missile programs.

Bernard Adolph Schriever was born in Bremen, Germany, on 14 September 1910, the son of Adolf Schriever, a mariner, and his wife Elizabeth Milch.

He had a younger brother, Gerhard.

His father was an engineering officer on the SS George Washington, a German ocean liner which was interned in New York Harbor on the outbreak of World War I in August 1914.

The family arrived on 1 February 1917, just two months before the United States declared war on Germany.

As a wave of anti-German sentiment swept across the United States, Schriever and his family moved to New Braunfels, Texas, a community with a large German-speaking population, where his father found work in a brewery.

Schriever and his brother went to school there.

Classes were taught in English, but their learning was facilitated by the ability of their teachers to translate for them.

The family then moved to San Antonio, Texas, where his father worked in a factory making gasoline engines.

His father died on 17 September 1918, as a result of an industrial accident, leaving Schriever and his brother in the care of his great uncle, Magnus Klattenhoff, a rancher in Slaton, Texas.

At this time, Schriever acquired the nickname, Ben, while his brother Gerhard became known as Gerry.

After a year, they returned to New Braunfels, where their mother placed them in an orphanage so she could work.

His mother found work as a housekeeper for a wealthy banker, Edward Chandler, supervising the half dozen or so staff that worked in his mansion.

She managed to earn enough money working to take the boys back from the orphanage.

Chandler built her a house near the twelfth hole of the Brackenridge Park Golf Course in San Antonio, and her mother immigrated from Germany to care for the boys while she worked.

After Chandler died, Schriever's mother turned the refreshment stand that he had built for the children into a thriving business that sold sandwiches, cookies, lemonade, and soft drinks to golfers.

Born in Bremen, Germany, Schriever immigrated to the United States as a boy and became a naturalized US citizen in 1923.

Schriever became a naturalized US citizen in 1923.

The boys became proficient at the sport, and Schriever made the semifinals of the Texas junior championships in June 1927, winning a pair of golf shoes.

He entered the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (Texas A&M) in 1927.

His mother paid his $1,000 annual tuition from her sandwich stand profits.

He graduated from Texas A&M in 1931, and was commissioned as a reserve second lieutenant in the U.S. Army.

He was captain of the golf team in his senior year, and in 1931, the year he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in structural engineering, he won the Texas junior state championship and the San Antonio city championship.

He was offered a position as a professional golf player in Bryan, Texas, at a salary of $2,400 a year, more than he could earn doing anything else during the Great Depression years, but professional golf did not have the social respectability or the prize money that it carries today, and he turned it down.

At Texas A&M in those days, the entire all-male student body served in the college's Corps of Cadets and hence the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC).

Schriever served in an artillery battery in the Corps, so upon graduation he received a reservist commission as a second lieutenant in the Field Artillery Branch.

He applied for flight training, and on 1 July 1932, he reported to Randolph Field in San Antonio.

He completed this successfully and went on to advanced training at Kelly Field.

He transferred to the United States Army Air Corps and was awarded his wings and a commission as a reservist second lieutenant in 1933.

He graduated on 29 June 1933, and was awarded his wings and a commission as a reservist second lieutenant in the United States Army Air Corps.

In 1937, he was released from active duty at his own request and became a pilot with Northwest Airlines, but he returned to the Air Corps with a regular commission in 1938.

During World War II, Schriever received a Master of Arts in aeronautical engineering from Stanford University in June 1942, and was sent to the Southwest Pacific Area, where he flew combat missions as a bomber pilot with the 19th Bombardment Group until it returned to the United States in 1943.

He remained in Australia as chief of the maintenance and engineering division of the Fifth Air Force Service Command until the end of the war.

After the war, Schriever joined the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) headquarters at the Pentagon as chief of the Scientific Liaison Branch in the office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Materiel.

In 1954, Schriever became head of the Western Development Division (WDD), a special agency created to manage the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) development effort.

There he directed the development of the Atlas, Thor, Titan and Minuteman missiles.

In 1959, he became commander of Air Research and Development Command (ARDC), and in 1961, of the Air Force Systems Command.

He retired in 1966.