Tom Biel was born on July 28, 1916, in St. Paul, Minnesota. He enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force on August 5, 1941, and entered flight training on December 21, 1941. Biel was promoted to Sergeant Pilot and awarded his Pilot Wings on July 24, 1942, and he deployed to England on August 18, 1942. Sergeant Pilot Biel next attended Advanced Flying Training and Operational Training flying Hawker Hurricanes and Supermarine Spitfires from August 1942 to March 1943. He transferred to the U.S. Army Air Forces as a Flight Officer on March 25, 1943, and then attended Combat Crew Replacement Training in the P-47 Thunderbolt from April to September 1943. Flight Officer Biel joined the 334th Fighter Squadron of the 4th Fighter Group in England on September 7, 1943, and he was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant in January 1944. He was promoted to 1st Lieutenant in February 1944, and he began flying the P-51 Mustang the same month. Lt Biel was credited with the destruction of 5.333 enemy aircraft in aerial combat, plus 2 damaged, and another 6 aircraft on the ground while strafing enemy airfields, before he was shot down and killed in action on April 24, 1944, over Worms, Germany. He was officially listed as Missing in Action until being declared dead on November 6, 1945. The wreckage of his aircraft was not discovered for several years after the end of World War II, and his remains were returned to the United States on February 17, 1949. Tom Biel is buried at Calvary Cemetery in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.