Family and Early Life
Dieter Dengler was born and grew up in the small town of Wildberg in the Black Forest region of Germany. He was very close to his mother and brothers. Dengler did not know his father, who was killed while serving in the Wehrmacht during World War II. His grandfather was declared a political enemy of the Nazis for being the only citizen in his town who did not vote for Hitler. Dengler later credited his grandfather's resolve as a major inspiration during his time in Laos. His grandfather's steadfastness, despite great danger, was one reason Dengler refused to sign a document decrying alleged American aggression in Southeast Asia, presented to him by the North Vietnamese after his crash.
Dengler's first experience with aircraft came when he was very young and witnessed enemy allied aircraft bombing the Fatherland and flying over his town from his bedroom window. From that moment, he wanted to be a pilot. He became an apprentice in a local machine shop, but after seeing an ad in an American magazine expressing a need for pilots, he decided to go to the United States. Although a family friend agreed to sponsor him, he lacked money for passage and came up with a plan to independently salvage brass and other metals to sell.
When he turned 18 and upon completion of his apprenticeship, he hitchhiked to Hamburg and set sail for New York City with the dream of becoming a pilot. He lived off the streets of Manhattan for just over a week and eventually found his way to an Air Force recruiter. He was assured that piloting aircraft was what the Air Force was all about, so he enlisted and in June 1957, went to basic training at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas. After basic, Dengler was initially assigned duty as a motor pool mechanic. His qualifications as a machinist led to an assignment as a gunsmith. He took and passed the test for aviation cadets, but his enlistment expired before he was selected for pilot training.
After his discharge he joined his brother in a bakery shop near San Francisco and enrolled in San Francisco City College, then transferred to College of San Mateo where he studied aeronautics. Upon completion of two years of college, he applied for the US Navy aviation cadet program and was accepted. After completion of flight training he went to Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas for training as an attack pilot in the Douglas AD Skyraider. He joined VA-145 while the squadron was on shore duty at Naval Air Station Alameda, California. In 1965 the squadron joined the carrier USS Ranger. In December the carrier set sail for the coast of Vietnam, stationed initially at Dixie Station off South Vietnam, then moving north to Yankee Station for operations against North Vietnam.
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