Army Private Joseph Swaine Riera was born in February 14, 1905 in Pensacola, Florida, the son of Joseph Vincent Riera (1873-1969) and Mabel "May" Inez Swaine (1881-1957). His father supported his family from their home at 324 West Strong Street as an insurance agent. Young Joseph was also the grandson of a Confederate veteran Anthony Joseph Riera (1846-1918), who followed his brother Albert by enlisting at a local cavalry camp known as Camp Tattnall. He was assigned to his brother's Company “B” of the 15th Confederate Cavalry under the command of Molino's Captain Joseph B. Vaughn until he was captured. Albert had enlisted the year before in 1862 but was medically discharged in 1863 due to hemorrhaging of the lungs.
In the meantime, when it was time for young Joseph to enter the work force, he followed in this father's footsteps and became an insurance agent as well. A former clerk for the H. H. Thornton Agency, he went to work for the Fisher Brown Company by 1940 while his father was the vice president of the Knowles Brothers Agency. He remained in the family home at 408 West Gonzalez Street until he left to enlist in the US Army on May 25, 1942.
After enlistment he was sent to Camp Blanding, Florida for processing and then to basic training. By 1943, he was stationed at Ft. Douglas, Utah where the Army Air Corps operated an airfield with the 7th Bombardment Group of B-17's. But, around April 20, 1943 he came down with a dry cough, labored breathing, and fatigue. He was admitted to the Ft. Douglas Hospital and by May 1st he had developed pneumonia as his condition worsened. Further complications caused a pulmonary infarction that brought about his death on May 10th at 2:15 AM. His remains were returned to Pensacola and buried in St. Michael's Cemetery.
As for his brother Robert Emmett Riera, he would graduate from Pensacola high school in 1931 at the age of 16 before entering the naval academy where he graduated in 1935. After a tour of duty at sea, he entered naval aviation and received his wings in 1939. During WWII, Riera flew a Hellcat fighter until he became the commander of a Curtiss Helldiver dive-bomber bombing squadron. In one particular battle he selected an enemy battleship as his target and scored a direct hit with a 1,000-pound bomb. Later the same day, he led another bomber strike against a Japanese battleship of the Musashi class in the Sulu Sea. The next day he also spotted a Japanese carrier at 15,000 feet and he and his boys tipped over and dove straight for it! Riera got two direct hits on her deck with 1,000-pound bombs, then pulled out low at between 700 and 800 feet leaving her on fire and listing when they left. He would pass away on February 11, 2000 and was buried in the Barrancas Cemetery.
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