Colonel Frederic Donald Selbie, Jr.

1943

    Frederic  Donald Selbie, Jr., the only son of  Alta Marie Appleby and Frederic Donald Selbie, Sr. was  born 20 April 1920.

     Don was a senior at Princeton University on Pearl Harbor Day, 1941.  He applied for and received acceptance as 

Communications Cadet, with a reporting date of 29th  August 1942.

     He was commissioned a 2nd Lt. on the 26th of December 1942 and received further training in Radar at Harvard and MIT.  

His orders were, then, to report to Pratt, Kansas,  where Don joined the 25th Bomb Squadron, 40th Bomb Group,  58th Wing 

and the famed B-29's.

    He flew 28 missions from Chakulia, India and 4 missions from Tinian Island.   At the time of his discharged, he had 

achieved the rank of Captain.

    In a letter, dated 3 March 2003, Don writes,  "The civilian life did not take.  No airplanes or radar sets.  So I returned to the 

Air Force and served until 1963 in the Strategic Air Command at MacDill,  Ft. Worth,  Albuquerque,  Guam, England, Omaha, 

Savanna and retired as a Colonel.  It was a great life.  I know this is a lie, but as I remember I enjoyed every minute of it.

    After 1963, I joined the Martin Marietta Corp.  and retired as a vice-president in 1986.  On a leave of absence from Martin in 

1975 and 1976, I served in the Office of the Ass't. Secretary of  Defense for Intelligence and as the Director of the General 

Defense Intelligence Program."

Special thanks to Col. and Mrs. Selbie, 

and daughter, Dorrie Selbie-O'Brien