FLAME THRASHER SUPPLEMENT

PHOTOS NOT IN JANUARY FLAME

These are photos from the going away party for Dick and Blanche Thrasher as detailed in the January 2009 issue of the Flame.

I want to add my personal comments about Dick. The first time I met him he informed me that his name was Dick, not Richard. I always remembered that.

The Flame article mentioned that Dick was a tail gunner. He is well known in the USAF for having survived three bailouts from B-36s that crashed.

One was so famous that several TV documentaries have been made and in the last one just a year or so ago they took Dick back to the crash site in Canada to get his comments. This was the B-36 that was carrying a nuclear bomb from Alaska going back to the lower 48 when the engines failed. The pilot flew out over the Pacific and ditched the bomb, then turned back over British Columbia, ordered the crew to bail out and the plane crashed. Dick was one of the crew that survived, hiked to the ocean and were picked up by a fishing boat.

On another occasion his bomber was participating in a training mission over Oklahoma City where fighter planes were attacking and one came too close and damaged the B-36 so that the crew again were ordered to bail out. I don't remember the other incident, but Dick got tired of landing in a parachute. He even had trouble getting others to fly with him.

He loved taking care of the church building as a trustee and personally made a lot of repairs as described in the Flame. He also sat next to me on the Building committee and contributed greatly to the design of the church and managing the building funds. He even took the time and trouble to draw up a design that he thought would be better than the one offered by the designer and the church took the time to compare the two designs before accepting the original design. But we all saw the design in a different perspective as we made the final decisions. Fortunately we were able to stay within budget and Dick contributed a lot to the process of managing our money. We will miss both Dick and Blanche.