John Daniel “Dan” Waddell, Jr. – ECU Chronicles: Our History

John Daniel Waddell, Jr. Image Source: East Carolina Yearbooks, Tecoan, 1942. UA50-01. University Archives, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC.

John Daniel “Dan” Waddell, Jr., was born June 3, 1921, in Commerce, Georgia, to John D. Waddell, Sr. (1891-1960) and his wife Lillian Vollrath Waddell (1897-1973). Waddell’s family moved to Hendersonville in 1930 where he graduated from Hendersonville High School in 1938. He began his undergraduate studies at Brevard Junior College and was a member of the football team there, playing for the young coach, John D. Christenbury (1907-1944).

In 1940, ECTC hired Christenbury as a physical education instructor and head coach for men’s athletics. Christenbury was accompanied by several players from the Brevard football squad including Waddell. At ECTC, Waddell quarterbacked the 1941 team to an undefeated season, the only one in the history of football at East Carolina. Waddell, known variously in the campus press as “Dirty Dan” and “Danny-on-the-spot,” was “instrumental in … the impressive 1941 record….” Off the gridiron, Waddell majored in math and physical education. He was also manager of the basketball team, and a member of the Young Democrats Club and the Varsity Club.

After graduating in 1942, Waddell enlisted in the U. S. Army Air Corps and soon received B-17 aircrew training at the Army Air Base in Alexandria, Louisiana. On December 12, 1943, Waddell, then a lieutenant in the Air Corps, married Claire Belle Reaben (1922-1995), in the Post Chapel in Alexandria. Miss Reaben was a Hendersonville native and graduate of Woman’s College, Greensboro (now UNC-G).

Soon commissioned as a lieutenant, Waddell was sent to Europe where he piloted and copiloted B-17s with the Eighth Air Force’s Third Bombardment Division, 95th Bombardment Group, the first American force to bomb Berlin. Waddell flew 31 missions including attacks on German industrial targets and airfields in and around Berlin and Münster, before being shot down October 17, 1944, over Belgium while en route to Cologne, Germany. Waddell survived the attack. In recognition of his exceptional service, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Purple Heart.

After the war, Waddell returned to Hendersonville where he and his wife, a business major, worked together in the Reaben Oil Company, a Texaco distributorship her father had founded in 1929. Waddell himself founded a chain of convenience stores, Triangle Stop Food Stores, serving western North Carolina. He also founded Southern Alarm and Security Company. Well-respected in the business community, Waddell was elected president of the North Carolina Petroleum Marketers Association (1981), and was a recipient of the Will Parker Award (1989), North Carolina’s most prestigious petroleum industry award.

In October 2001, while staying at a Raleigh hotel on his way to ECU for the 60th reunion of the 1941 ECTC football team, Waddell passed away in his sleep, age 80

Sources:

“Dan Waddell Quarterbacks Pirate Team To Successes.” Teco Echo. October 31, 1941. P. 3. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/37895
Goggin, Jean. “With The Armed Forces.” Teco Echo. December 1, 1944. P. 2. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/37945
“John D. Waddell.” 95^th Bomb Group. https://95thbg.mmsw.eu/person/6897
“Miss Reaben Is Bride Of Lt. Waddell.” Asheville Citizen-Times. December 16, 1943. P. 6.
“Obituaries: Hendersonville – Claire R. Waddell.” Asheville Citizen-Times. April 10, 1995. P. D5.
“Obituaries: Hendersonville – John Daniel Waddell, Jr.” Asheville Citizen-Times. October 31, 2001. P. B5.
“Presenting ECTC’s First Undefeated, Untied Football Team in the History of the School.” Tecoan. Pp. 157-162. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/15347
“Serving Their County: Stars And Stripes.” Asheville Citizen-Times. February 25, 1944. P. 12.
“With The Colors.” Charlotte Observer. July 23, 1944. P. 28. Section II, p. 11.
“With The Colors.” Charlotte Observer. November 12, 1944. Section IV, P. 3.