Herbert Toombs Jr.

Herbert Edgar Lawrence Herby Toombs, Jr., flyboy, rancher, farmer, outdoorsman, husband and father, died July 4, 2014, at his home in Uvalde at the age of 90. He was born Dec. 1, 1923 to Ethel Lee and H.E.L. Toombs as the eldest grandchild of Texas oil tycoon T.P. Lee.
As a child, he spent his free time in a little wooden skiff, fishing the Houston Ship Channel and Port Aransas and exploring the streams and mountains of Colorado Springs. He attended Shreiner Institute, then a boys boarding school in Kerrville, before attending Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College.

The moment he was of age, he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps, training at Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo. He was assigned to the 2nd Fighter Squadron, 52nd Fighter Group and was a member of the American Beagle Squadron, which took its name as a friendly jab at the renowned American Eagle Squadron of American pilots who flew Spitfires for Great Britains R.A.F. prior to U.S. entry into World War II.

Toombs flew frequent sorties until the war ended, escorting the long range bombers into Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and later to Munich and Vienna. The missions included bombings of the Third Reichs oil refineries, ammo dumps, and munitions factories, as well as strafing railroads on their returns from the bombing escorts. Toombs frequently served as flight leader in his Mustang, The Yellow Rose of Texas, under the call sign Cactus, and to most of his Beagle friends, this was his given name. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for bringing down a FockeWulf 190 in a dogfight with only one of the planes two machine guns functioning.

At wars end, he left the Air Force with the rank of captain, and returned to San Angelo, where he met and married Gloria Callan on Oct 6, 1947. They moved to Kansas, where he worked for a family natural gas business, then to New Mexico where their families ranched, and finally settled in Uvalde. Herby farmed and ranched in Zavala County until his retirement

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